The Name Is Kathleen Alcott, Darlings, Not Louisa May!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                           Though it spans the era from Sputnik to the Challenger, and includes the AIDS crisis in San Francisco, the novel is less Doctrowesque than a study of a child impacted by being raised by an activist mother.

                                              Fay Fern came from an ordinary Georgia family, who just happened to be wealthy.  The two daughters, Christine (Charlie) and Fay take opposite paths--one becoming  bar owner, the other a domestic terrorist.
     
                                                Fay, the terrorist, turns out, at nineteen, to have a child with astronaut Vincent Kahn,  a stand in for Neil Armstrong.  Fay loves the man, but hates the country.  They go their separate ways, with Vincent never knowing he has a son.  Not even when Fay destroys herself on fire, at the Apollo 11 launching.

                                                 Then comes Wright, the son's, struggle in life,  He emerges from being straight, to a gay activist, to one who writes to and wonders about his birth father.  He is trying desperately to understand both his parents, but the answers, like the book's ending, is ambiguous and inconclusive.  Though Alcott's historical research is impressive, the heartbreak of Wright coming to terms with his existence, which he had nothing to do with, is at the heart of the novel, and is heartbreaking to the reader.

                                                   The directions this books takes makes it an unconventional read, that will surprise those who think they know where this story is going.  Kathleen Alcott scores a winner on her first try.

                                                      How will she, eventually, prove to be????????????????