A Man You Could Love
by John Callahan
Published by Fulcrum Publishing
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Reviewed by Beth Cummings
John Callahan, professor of humanities at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon, and former running mate of Senator Eugene McCarthy in his presidential campaign in Oregon, has used his wit, his educational background and his political experiences to write a thoroughly engrossing novel. Besides the political angle, he creates believably likeable characters that value friendship, family, love and integrity.
Gabe Bontempo first meets Mick Whelan at the civil rights march on Washington in 1963. From there, they continue to run into each other as political operatives—Bontempo working for the 1968 presidential campaign of Bobby Kennedy and Whelen working for the campaign of Eugene McCarthy. Neither campaign went the way the characters hoped, but they grew to be friends when Whelen decides to run for Congress from Oregon and asks Bontempo to manage his campaign. Together, they learn the real ropes in Washington, D.C.
They work on legislation that invokes both anti-war and environmentalist stands—forging political connections and making political enemies as well as networks of supporters. Yet, as they are doing this, they are also loving their wives and raising young families. They have to deal with death, divorce and heartache as well as the adulation and press notoriety that comes with increasing fame.
Whelen is the mover and shaker within the book, but Bontempo is the man behind the “man you could love.” While Whelen is a Congressman and later a Senator and even a Presidential candidate, his friend Gabe is the one he confides in and the one who smoothes the way for his many appearances. It is hard to say if Gabe Bontempo really has a life of his own, but as the narrator of the story, he knows all the angles.
The book is fiction, but as in all good historical or political fiction, it is sometimes hard to tell where the truth leaves off and the story begins. According to Callahan, everyone in the book is fictitious, but they sound and feel like the real thing.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and highly recommend it.
Armchair Interviews says: Fact or fiction? Regardless, it is a 5-star read.