'Unafraid' considers what might have happened if JFK had survived the assassination

Jeff Golden

Jeff Golden's new novel, "Unafraid," is a parallel history exploration flowing out of one tiny change — what if those bullets aimed at JFK on Nov. 22, 1963, were a little bit off target and he was only wounded and lived out his two terms?

Since JFK is only winged by the slugs of Nov. 22, is there a huge hoo-haw about who did it? Is there the same reluctance to upset the country by finding out the truth? What if they come up with another much-doubted scenario that reeks of conspiracies the powerful don't want revealed?

Would there have been a Vietnam War? After all, John Kennedy was smart enough not to start another land war in Asia like the one we didn't win only a decade earlier. Would he have been able to stand up to his hawkish, dominating father and brother on that, not to mention the whole military-industrial complex?

JFK didn't fully "get" the Civil Rights movement, but would he soon? And where would that take Martin Luther King? Dare we say into the oven of politics?

Would JFK, at that early date, have recognized the dangers of increasing reliance on foreign oil and nudged the nation into the alternative energies we see just starting now? Or would he have continued the downward spiral of guzzling fossil fuels to keep up the profit margins of the powerful investing class?

And if JFK got us off Arab oil, would we still be interested in the Mideast and in Israel? And would those planes still fly into the buildings on 9/11?

What about all his women? Would the press stop ignoring his foibles and start doing exposes on him, destroying his presidency? J. Edgar Hoover had all the files and pictures on this. Would JFK find some way to get rid of this blackmailer?

Nixon would run in 1968, but would Bobby Kennedy? Would he have grown into the idealistic visionary we knew in real life? Would there still be an assassin waiting for him in that Los Angeles hotel? Would it be the same assassin?

Such alternative history plots are fascinating and Golden juggles them artfully in his 347-page romp, which takes place in the present day as JFK daughter Caroline Kennedy moves about in her bejiggered world, opening up the New York Times to Sept. 11, 2001, then, in the next chapter, to Sept. 12. What are the headlines? You practically have to leap around in the book to take the wrappers off the little candies it contains.

We're able to leap into the past because Caroline is editing the history of JFK and his impact on America over the ensuing 40 years, written for the Kennedy Center by a sharp, tough woman who won't stand for a whitewash.

Golden has some nibbles on the book from publishing companies, but they dinged the book because it mixes novel with lots of political philosophy, which comes as no surprise to those who've read Golden's columns, earlier books and seen his interview shows.

Golden is a shameless hope fiend and the subtitle of the book shows it — "A Novel of the Possible." That's pure Golden. In this toughest of times for liberal-progressives, Golden, in an interview, asks that we "overcome the political obstacles and create a different world, arriving (in his book) at a world that's better than the one we live in.

But he's not going to make it treacly and nice — and he lets his sharply-drawn characters (real life personages) be the nasty and sometimes nice people they are in the history books. He also lets them talk at extreme length, so there's often many pages of dialog with the author (the fictional one in the book) not doing enough trimming, guiding and explaining.

Which begs the question, why the book-within-a-book? Why not just skip the long didactic expositions of all the misguided policies of the world JFK walked into and the oh-so-sensible enlightened policies that would come from an increasingly wiser and much beloved (because he got shot and lived) JFK. Why not write a nice, juicy novel that stays in the hands of author and leads us to love the heros (and forgive them their juicy, much-detailed sins) and hate the scheming villains who want to block this ideal world?

But, dang, Golden has much in him of someone who writes those dry political platform statements and white papers. He would do well to shake it and write foremost, not for future candidates, but for the reader, who longs for a good read based on these gripping ideas.

Golden put out initial copies with publish-on-demand house iUniverse and is promoting the book to prove its appeal while still looking for a "real" publisher, so this book can actually be considered a draft, a good one.

It's also clearly a love letter to the lost prince of a generation, although Golden complains that JFK was far too romanticized after his death. Still, like so many in his generation (he was 13 on Nov. 22, 1963), Golden knew precisely where he was when he got the soul-shattering news. And, like most pundits, Golden thinks it skewed history and the American Dream big time.

So, why not a history of the way things actually would have been? Here it is.

"That single moment that day in Dallas caused such a radical pivot in the attitude of this country. He generated that pride about the country and the believe in self that is separate from his record of accomplishments," muses Golden. "His murder was something a lot bigger that him dying that day."

The book is available in local stores and on the internet: www.unafraidthebook.com