The Red Scare of the 1950s destroyed or derailed the careers, personal lives and reputations of many prominent people working in publishing and entertainment. Being denounced as a Communist, or suspected of having Communist or Socialist political sympathies affected the famous, including writers Lillian Hellman, Ring Lardner, Jr. and Dalton Trumbo, and directors Martin Ritt, Lee Grant and Jules Dassin, but average working Americans, especially union members, Jews, and African-Americans who were working for change in organizations like the NAACP were caught up in the mania and arrested, jailed or called to testify before HUAC, the now-notorious House Un-American Activities Committee.
In Red Letter Days, Phoebe Adler is a young woman trying to make her way in the bohemian atmosphere of 1955 Greenwich Village. After growing up poor on Manhattan's Lower East Side, she worked in an aircraft factory during World War II, as many women did, and made her views on equal pay for women known. Phoebe's ambition was to become a writer, and she had finally achieved some minor success with scripts for the new medium of television. Then the unthinkable happened – she was blacklisted, fired from her job, branded a Red, and told to sign a loyalty oath...
Phoebe's parents had passed away and she helped support her older sister Mona who had been ill from birth with a rare disease. She lived in a facility where she was an object of medical research in exchange for her room, board and care, but Phoebe contributed money so Mona had her own room and some extras. The two were very close and Phoebe worried about Mona's gradually deteriorating health.
When Phoebe found herself jobless and in danger of arrest, she went to Mona for guidance. Mona advised her to get her things together, and buy a ticket on the first ship to London that she could. Phoebe reluctantly agreed and with her small amount of savings, and some help from her best friend Anne, she fled across the pond on the Queen Mary.
Hannah Wolfson was also a former New Yorker, living in London with her husband and two young daughters. Both were journalists, but Hannah had found a new career in TV and started a company to produce programs for ITV, the commercial competition to the BBC.
Hannah was sympathetic and took Phoebe on as a script girl. Hiring blacklisted employees was risky, but Hannah had a number of them using assumed names. The TV show they were producing was meant for the British and American markets, so the credits could not show any blacklisted individuals. Gradually Phoebe settled into the job, and became close to Hannah, her friends and associates. Hannah invites her to call Mona each Sunday from her apartment when rates are lower – Phoebe has no phone and the calls are very expensive.
Things go well for Phoebe at first. She sells a few scripts to Hannah, and meets a charming man. While she is always fearful of being deported, she feels relatively safe in sympathetic Britain.
Hannah's program becomes a great success once it airs and her future looks bright until her husband shifts from supportive to cold. They divorce, painfully for Hannah, but the show still thrives.
Gradually, it becomes clear that neither woman is truly safe from investigation, and Phoebe is arrested by American agents...
Author Sarah-Jane Stratford has done the research and referenced real-life events and the lives of some actual individuals, constructing a compelling novel with a fast pace and plenty of tension that will keep you turning the pages till the very end. Be sure to read the Author's Note for a complete experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment