Of life, of death, of growing up through an inflection point in the history of America

My grandson Lex is a fan of all things Halloween. His collection of animatronics ranges in size from hand puppets to giant monoliths that brush the ceiling; our rec room is nearly impassable.

Today, just as I’d finished reading Caitlin Hicks’ novel, Kennedy Girl, Lex presented me with his latest addition. This one, the size of a five-year-old, was dressed in a tuxedo, its hands up to the sides of its face, which was half white and half black.

Activated, the apparition threatened to frighten us with his horrific mask, which he followed up by tearing apart the two sides of his face to reveal a hideously grinning skull.

I couldn’t help thinking that as blemished as we are, underneath we are all the same, a theme which is borne out in Caitlin Hicks’ story—of life, of death, and of growing up through an inflection point in the history of America.

Set in 1968, during the height of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement, the story is ear-marked by the assassination of a second Kennedy, and by the death of MLK’s peaceful crusade and its aftermath–the violent era of the Black Panthers.

While the author recounts these pivotal events, the singular voice of her narrator remains paramount. Seventeen-year-old Annie Shea is a nice Catholic girl, whose journal entries introduce many chapters of the book, beginning with her skittish entry into adult sexuality, and ending with her admission to Berkeley UC, on the strength of her writing skills.

In between, Annie falls in love with a black boy when they are both cast in a high school production of the musical HAIR, directed by a priest, who impregnates a cast member. Annie, one of fourteen children, must accompany her erstwhile friend to the care of a backroom abortionist.

As in this near-fatal instance, Annie seems to confront the jagged edge of reality where ever she turns. The black boy, Lucas, with whom she falls in love, is arrested for being with a white girl, and later beaten by the cops; her favourite brother Buddy is a deserter; and it falls to Annie to chauffeur the fugitives from their Pasadena home, Lucas to a rendezvous with the Black Panthers in Oakland, and Buddy to asylum in Canada.

When Annie’s older sister, her role model, the feminist Madcap, joins RFK’s run for the White House, little sister soon learns that her values lie far to the left of their father, a staunch Republican. Wearing the uniform of a Kennedy girl—blue skirt and white blouse—Annie opens herself up to the wisdom of the world. She is on hand at the Ambassador Hotel when Bobby announces his doomed next victory in Chicago, shortly before being murdered and ending America’s hope for a second chance.

Caitlin Hicks’ unrelenting descriptive prowess immerses us in Annie’s world. As Bobby’s funeral train passes, we grieve with “people on rooftops, young men in uniform, saluting and standing stock still, old people with hats over their hearts…RIP, RFK their handmade signs said…Nuns and baseball players side-by-side…summer goers in orange shorts and dirty t-shirts…Farewell, Kennedy painted on the side of a barn…girls holding cats…A woman in the middle of a field, her white gossamer dress twirling as she ran, holding a flowing banner above her head Goodbye Bobby, Goodbye…” And so pass on all who wish “there was anything that could bring a man back.”

In her final dash for freedom with the boys in Lucas’s old truck, the story builds to a climax and closes as it had begun, with the ‘seasoned’ journalist admitted to Berkeley on the strength of her stories, invested with the author’s power and becoming a fable of American life.

As with my grandson’s two-faced animatronic, we live in a duality—the mask thrust upon us, and our inner selves, which we share in common with all of humanity.

Craig Brunanski is a writer, actor and author.

Gord Halloran, who created the graphic illustration for  this post, is a public artist

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