THE RED WHITE AND BLUE

Author:

John Gregory Dunne

DHEA CAROLLIN RIBKA

The red, white, and blue

Author
:

John Gregory Dunne

New York : St. Martin's Press, 1988, 1987.

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Print book : Fiction : English : 1st St. Martin's Press
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Journalists -- United States -- Fiction.

Subjects

Journalists.
United States.

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Document Type :

Fiction
Fiction
Book
John Gregory Dunne
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ISBN
0312909659 9780312909659
:
OCLC
18235567
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Notes
Reprint. Originally published: New York : Simon
:
and Schuster, 1987.
Description
498 pages ; 18 cm
:
Responsibilit
John Gregory Dunne.
y :

Dunne writes about Scotch-swilling Republicans at Bohemian Grove and death-row dementoes
at San Quentin with the journalistic edge he first sharpened in books on the Hollywood studio
and the California grape strike--both of which also figure prominently here. Dunne's thick tale,
narrated by the ostensibly neutral Jack Broderick, finds this self-described ironist instead thrust
onto a collison course of rich and poor, left and right, sacred and profane. For rich, there's his
father, the sort of moneybags ""whose wealth was of such a dimension that it had to be
diagrammed with a cartoon"" when magazines estimated his fortune. For poor, there's Onyx
Leon, the Caesar Chavez-type labor leader who, after being discarded by the radical chic, is
murdered by a death squad in his native Cristo Rey, a thinly disguised El Salvador. For left,
there's Leah Kaye, a young lawyer for whom ""social activism was a narcotic."" Her
effectiveness as a troublemaker catches the attention of journalist Jack, who eventually marries
and divorces her, and also attracts his elderly father, whose one-nighter with the firebrand
suggests he's above just about everything, including class loyalty. For right, there's Richie Kane:
interviewed by Jack in Vietnam for his oral history, Grunts, Kane reappears as a disgruntled local
politician in San Francisco, a shanty Irish-American from ""the Mission"" and a deadly-dark
alter ego to lace Irish Jack. For sacred, there's Bro. Jack's celebrity-priest brother, ""a Richelieu
of the atomic age,"" who uses the media for his congregation. For profane, pick any of the
Hollywood Sleazoids here, such as Marry Magnin, the movie executive, whose definition of
good taste is ""tits and ass, but never bush."" Master of the quick take and the long view, Dunne
proves worthy of his vast historical subject. He looks the American madness in the eye, and
doesn't flinch, but then flashes a well-earned smile.

There is a nun story . below the title. She was buried in a shallow grave in chalatenangon
province, Christo Rey, C.A. the man who shot her was, by all the unofficial accounts, wearing a
mickey mause sweatshirt. The nun was a sister of mercy and her name was sister Phyllis and the
seven shots from the ingram mac-10 with flash suppressor fired by the man in the mickey mause
sweatshirt had obliterated sister Phylliss face.
To a cradle catholic like myself, sister Phyllis seemed an odd name for a nun. The nuns I
remember from parochial school had names like sister John Bosco and sister Annunciata and
sister mary Magdalene. It was Leah who identified sister phylliss body. Leah keye. Leah was my
first ex-wife. It was coincidental that she was in Cristo Rey, C.A. when Phyllis Emmett was
killed, but not accidental. Leah was attracted to places and situations in which words like

injustice and revolution figured. Social activism was a narcotic to which she remained addicted
most of her adult life.

My father was the sort of rich man whose wealth was of such a dimension that it had to be
diagrammed ith a cartoom when the new York times magazine tired to estimate his net worth.
Hugh Broderick, the puppeteer, manipulating the marionettes of his empire. of course my father
did not talk to the times and said he had not read the story, although he also said the figures were
wrong, leaving the distinct impression that the estimate was to low. there is no contradiction
here.

Mothers death, when I was still in school, put an end to what my father called that parochial
school nun stuff. A catholic education , at least in the formatif years, was the one concession on
what she considered her childrens behalf that Gertrude Mary Mahoney Broderick was able to
wrest from her husband.
My mother belonged to that generation of pious catholic women who knew the feats days
assigned to each saint. January 21, saints Agnes. January 21, feast of saint agnes, she would say
brightly at breakfast. Thats who saint Agness Home is named after. They do such good work for
the nuns at saint Agness. January 22, Saint Anastasius.
Ed kileys the new pastor at saint anastasius, hugh did you hear that? January 233, my fathers
birthday, Saint Raymond of Pennafort. I dont understand why your parents didnt name you
Rymond, hugh. An observation she made every January 23. Raymond Broderick, she would say,
trying the name out. Ray Broderick. Mrs Raymond Broderick, my husbands named after saint
Raymond of pennafort.

Jimmys script was a piece of shit

Marty Magnin, reeking of pinaud lime sec cologne, his sense of the appropriate still intact, edged
into the pew next to me. His shirt was open four buttons down and the smell of the cologne
seemed to be emanating from the underbrush of salt and papper hair on his chest.
Last week lottie French was interested, marty magnin said, looking around the chapel foe
people he knew. The imitation walnut casket, topped as per jimmy danas funeral instructions
with a single white mask rose scotchtaped to its cover, seemed to make him uneasy.

marty magnin's elbow nudged me in the ribs. jimmy had evidently talked. I suppose jimmy dana
had been my closest friend.

All through this exchange marty was trying to lead me away, shoving repoeters and cameramen
aside. His mercades 450SL was standing in front of all saints in a no parking zone, top down. He
opened the door and shoved me inside the car. I was now beginning to function, able to piece the
fragments together. Bro had and been shot. Leah had also been shot. Apparently together. In san
Francisco. Outside Glide Memorial.
That also made the networks. As did martys vanity license plate, caught by the cameras as his
450SL gunned away from the curb. My sentiments exactly.

On a Tuesday Morning the following august, Bro and I drove from Bohemian Grove to
San Quentin ton witness the execuation of Germany baker. We left the grove shortly before six in
my black Porsche. The sun was just coming up, filtering through the redwoods, dappling the
narrow, curvy two-lane road.

One thing Bro shared with leah was a passion for organization and logistical order. How much so
I did not fully appreciate until after he died when I began rummaging through the papers in The
Augustine Broderick Collection at Harvard. Until I was named executor in his will, I had not
even been aware yhat he had established, long before his death, a Broderick repository at the
Widener Library.

Jack is Leah Kaye's ex-husband, a reporter turned Hollywood screenwriter. He first meets Leah
during his newspaper days, and between her various sit-ins they somehow manage a courtship
(or at least a physical relationship, for Leah is a no-nonsense kind of woman) and eventually a
brief marriage. Then Leah goes off to play midwife to yet another revolution, and Jack drifts into
screenwriting. They remain friendly, however, until her assassination at an anti-apartheid rally.
Work here about my marriage to Anabel Rutland. A word is all that I deserves. The marriage is
no more important to this narrative than it was to Anabel, or to me. Anabel was a marriage
addict, which of course meant that she was a divorce addict as well. I had nothing else to do.

The first time I saw Anabel she was fucking. It occurs to me now that I had seen or heard both
the women I ultimatelu married fornicating with other man before thay became involved with
me. I note this only as a concidence.

The story skips around so much that it's sometimes hard to tell where you are in the timeline,
who is married to who, and who is alive or dead at that point - and it's really hard to care. That a
chapter begins with the phrase "Let me digress" is sort of silly; half of the book or more is the
narrator digressing. The language in the book is a little rough, if you're the type who cares, with
racial slurs and "bad words" for parts of the anatomy abounding. Almost everyone seems to have
slept with almost everyone else in the book, but it's the 1960s and probably not surprising. Still,
rampant sex and swearing will be outweighed by good writing and a good story - sadly, The Red
White and Blue has neither.