Fellow Travelers Book Party

The sole downside of co-hosting last night’s book party for Thomas Mallon’s universally-praised new novel Fellow Travelers is that journalism ethics and simple good manners prohibit saying it was a tremendous success. The crowd of 100 people—ages ranging literally from 18 to 82—was so intelligent and fun it was hard to remember it was D.C., except that Charles Francis’s triplex apartment rocked with D.C.-area authors and shakers: Last week’s Triangle Awards’ Lifetime Achievement Award winner Andrew Holleran whose most recent novel is Grief; newscaster Jim Lehrer, whose 16th novel The Phony Marine came out last November; public relations guru Bob Witeck, whose savvy and essential Business Inside Out was published last September; the Washington Post’s Hank Stuever, author of the “personal and profound” [PW] Off Ramp: Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsewhere; Chris Bull, author of Perfect Enemies and editor of Come Out Fighting; Michael Barone, whose Our First Revolution was published last week; San Francisco Chronicle Washington correspondent Carolyn Lochhead; essayist and frequent NYTRB critic Adam Goodheart , whose book on slavery is forthcoming from Knopf, and Dale Carpenter , whose book Sex, Lies, and the Law: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas, will be published next year by Norton.

After the charming/disarming Mallon’s remarks about the world’s progress with democracy and America’s ongoing quarrel over gay equality—two of the novel’s three themes, with faith—he invited legendary activist Frank Kameny to join him on the staircase. Kameny’s long and ultimately successful battle with the government over sexual orientation as grounds for dismissal or denied security clearances has provided protection for two generations of gay employees since the McCarthy-era witch hunts faced by Mallon’s characters in Fellow Travelers. Kameny thanked the crowd and reassured everyone that although the next issue of the Advocate magazine will include a report of his death from aids, the issue after that, two weeks later, will carry a correction.

Charles quoted reviews of Fellow Travelers that, nationwide, have been extremely good to great to euphoric, especially here, here, and here.