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Red, White and Blue

Name: Red, White and Blue
Author: Susan Isaacs
ISBN: 9780786217427

by Susan Isaacs

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Overview

From Compromising Positions to Lily White, Susan Isaacs has written seven critically acclaimed novels, all unforgettable New York Times bestsellers that have enthralled and touched her numerous fans. Now, she delivers her most powerful story yet, the gripping saga of two ordinary strangers whose hearts and lives will be joined in a most extraordinary way. . . .

A straight shooter in every sense, FBI agent Charlie Blair has the numbing job of a bureaucrat and the soul of a cowboy. Dying a slow death from lack of purpose, he jumps at the chance to leave behind Dairy Queen vanilla cones and the History Channel to infiltrate a paramilitary group in Wyoming. Charlie's not the only one hot on the trail, however. Lauren Miller, a bright, ambitious New York journalist, has arrived in Jackson Hole and is bent on finding these extremists for a career-making scoop. On the surface, this whiter than whitebread mountain man and the independent, urbane East-coast writer seem worlds apart. But they share more than they can ever imagine—including a great-great-grandmother and a mutual desire for justice that will spark not only a powerful passion for the truth . . . but an irresistible passion for each other too.

Author Biography: Susan Isaacs is the author of eight novels including Red, White & Blue, Lily White, After All These Years, Compromising Positions, and Shining Through and one non-fiction title Brave Dames And Wimpettes: What Women Are Really Doing on Page and Screen. She lives on Long Island with her husband.

Spanning the 20th century, this multigenerational saga focuses on Lauren Miller and Charlie Blair, strangers from opposite sides of the continent, who are drawn together by an appalling hate crime and their mutual passion for justice.

About the Author, Susan Isaacs

Susan Isaacs is the bestselling author of eleven novels, two screenplays, and one work of nonfiction. She lives on Long Island.

Biography

Susan Isaacs, novelist, essayist and screenwriter, was born in Brooklyn and educated at Queens College. After leaving school, she worked as an editorial assistant at Seventeen magazine. In 1968, Susan married Elkan Abramowitz, a then a federal prosecutor. She became a senior editor at Seventeen but left in 1970 to stay home with her newborn son, Andrew. Three years later, she gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth. During this time she freelanced, writing political speeches as well as magazine articles. Elkan became a criminal defense lawyer.

In the mid-seventies, Susan got the urge to write a novel. A year later she began working on what was to become Compromising Positions, a whodunit set on suburban Long Island. It was published in 1978 by Times Books and was chosen a main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club. Her second novel, Close Relations, a love story set against a background of ethnic, sexual and New York Democratic politics (thus a comedy), was published in 1980 by Lippincott and Crowell and was a selection of the Literary Guild. Her third, Almost Paradise, was published by Harper & Row in 1984, and was a Literary Guild main selection; in this work Susan used the saga form to show how the people are molded not only by their histories, but also by family fictions that supplant truth. All of Susan's novels have been New York Times bestsellers. Her fiction has been translated into thirty languages.

In 1985, she wrote the screenplay for Paramount's Compromising Positions, which starred Susan Sarandon and Raul Julia. She also wrote and co-produced Touchstone Pictures' Hello Again. The 1987 comedy starred Shelley Long and Judith Ivey.

Her fourth novel, Shining Through, set during World War II, was published by Harper & Row in 1988. Twentieth-Century Fox's film adaptation starred Michael Douglas and Melanie Griffith. Her fifth book, Magic Hour, a coming-of-middle-age novel as well as a mystery, was published in January 1991. After All These Years was published in 1993; critics lauded it for its strong and witty protagonist. Lily White came out in 1996 and Red, White and Blue in 1998. All the novels were published by HarperCollins and were main selections of the Literary Guild. In 1999, Susan's first work of nonfiction, Brave Dames and Wimpettes: What Women Are Really Doing on Page and Screen, was published by Ballantine's Library of Contemporary Thought. During 2000, she wrote a series of columns on the presidential campaign for Newsday. Long Time No See, a Book of the Month Club main selection, was published in September 2001; it was a sequel to Compromising Positions. Susan's tenth novel is Any Place I Hang My Hat (2004).

Susan Isaacs is a recipient of the Writers for Writers Award and the John Steinbeck Award. She serves as chairman of the board of Poets & Writers and is a past president of Mystery Writers of America. She is also a member of the National Book Critics Circle, The Creative Coalition, PEN, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the International Association of Crime Writers, and the Adams Round Table. She sits on the boards of the Queens College Foundation, the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association, the North Shore Child and Family Guidance Association, the Nassau County Coalition Against Domestic Violence and is an active member of her synagogue. She has worked to gather support for the National Endowment of the Arts' Literature Program and has been involved in several anti-censorship campaigns. In addition to writing books, essays and films, Susan has reviewed books for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and Newsday and written about politics, film and First Amendment issues. She lives on Long Island with her husband.

Biography courtesy of the author's official web site.

Good To Know

Some outtakes from our interview with Isaacs:

"My first job was wrapping shoes in a shoe store in the low-rent district of Fifth Avenue and saying ‘Thank you!' with a cheery smile. I got canned within three days for not wrapping fast enough, although I suspect that often my vague, future-novelist stare into space while thinking about sex or lunch did not give me a smile that would ring the bell on the shoe store's cheer-o-meter."

"I constantly have to fight against the New York Effect, an overwhelming urge to wear black clothes so everyone will think, Egad, isn't she chic and understated! I'm not, by nature, a black-wearing person. (I'm not, by nature, a chic person either.) I like primary colors as well as bright purple, loud chartreuse, and shocking pink. And that's just my shoes."

"I'm not a great fan of writing classes. Yes, they do help people sometimes, especially with making them write regularly. But the aspiring writer can be a delicate creature, sensitive or even oversensitive to criticism. I was that way: I still am. The problem begins with most people's natural desire to please. In a classroom situation, especially one in which the work will be read aloud or critiqued in class, the urge to write something likable or merely critic-proof can dam up your natural talent. Also, it keeps you from developing the only thing you have is a writer -- your own voice. Finally, you don't know the people in a class well enough to figure out where their criticism is coming from. A great knowledge of literature? Veiled hostility? The talent is too precious a commodity to risk handing it over to strangers."

"Writing is sometimes an art, and it certainly is a craft. But it's also a job. I go to work five or six days a week (depending how far along I am with my work-in-progress). Like most other people, there are days I would rather be lying in a hammock reading or going to a movie with a friend. But whether you're an artist or an accountant, you still have to show up at work. Otherwise, it is unlikely to get done."

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Editorials

Nora Krug

Red, White and Blue is nothing if not a delightful diversion.
— The New York Times Book Review

Entertainment Weekly

A passionate page-turner...Should earn the allegiance of her countless devoted fans.

New York Times Book Review

Delightful.

Seattle Times

Isaacs excels at keeping the reader entertained.

Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

Superior entertainment...A funny, suspenseful, true-to-life novel.

Clevland Plain Dealer

Isaacs delivers.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The story of Jewish immigrants in America is a staple of commercial fiction. Still, it is a surprise to find Isaacs, usually the provider of zippy dialogue and suspenseful plots, writing a lackluster novel in this genre. In the first part of this multigenerational saga, she follows the offspring of Dora Schottland and Herschel Blaustein, loutish products of European shtetls whose unhappy union produces descendants who will exemplify dramatically different American experiences. Jake Blaustein, larcenous grifter and general no-goodnik, stays one step ahead of the law by decamping a train in Wyoming, where he changes his name to Blair, marries a half-Indian woman and forgets his Jewish heritage. His sister, Ruthie, stays in New York and marries a successful Jewish lawyer who is killed in WWII. Her children and grandchildren remain identifiably Jewish but not religiously observant. In the second half of the book, the great-great-grandchildren of Dora and Herschel meet unaware of the fact that they are related, however. Lauren Miller, reporter for the Long Island Jewish News, encounters her distant cousin, FBI agent Charlie Blair, in Jackson Hole. Instant passionate attraction flares between them--though, of course, many obstacles stand in the way of their happiness. Both are on the trail of members of a violent militia that spews racial and anti-Semitic rhetoric. Here the book finally develops some suspense. Isaacs has done her homework well; her depiction of white-supremacist groups is informative and convincing. But the sappy love story overwhelms even this aspect of the narrative, and by the time Isaacs winds up waving the flag in celebration of the values that unite Americans, this sincerely patriotic novel is as heavy as a stale bagel. Editor, Larry Ashmead. Literary Guild main selection; Doubleday Book Club alternate. Nov.

Library Journal

Isaacs (Lily White) gets really serious here with the story of Westerner Charlie Blair, a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who is about to infiltrate a white supremacist group, and Lauren Miller, hired by the Jewish News to document the group's anti-Semitism. Their link? Unknown to them, they are both descendants of Jewish immigrants who met on the way to America.

Nora Krug

Red, White and Blue is nothing if not a delightful diversion. -- The New York Times Book Review

Sharon Cleary

October 1998

Continental Divide

Bestselling author Susan Isaacs presents an exhilarating, intensely moving, and quintessentially American tale in her eighth novel, Red, White and Blue. Spanning the 20th century, this multigenerational saga focuses on Lauren Miller and Charlie Blair, distant cousins on opposite sides of the continent, who are drawn together by an appalling hate crime and their mutual passion for justice.

Our heroine, Lauren Miller, is 27 and disappointed with her life's achievements: "By now, a genuine Young American Who Will Make the Future Bright would have been able to make banner headlines by tracing an inadvertent aside after a peers conference all the way up to the White House," Lauren wryly reminds herself. But as a reporter at the tiny, cash-poor, New York-based Jewish News, she has found the story that could launch her into the journalistic big leagues. The growing strength of neo-Nazi groups in Wyoming and Idaho assails her Long Island-temple-weaned sensibilities. A recent bombing of a Jewish-owned video store in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, piques Lauren's interest, and though her assertion that the "attack" is anti-Semitic seems tenuous, she feels it's worth on-site investigation. Unfortunately, her patronizing editor, Eli Bloom, disagrees: "Girlie, who do you think you are? Nellie Bly? Anyhow, what do you know from this kind of stuff?"

After Eli assigns her to cover the opening of "Milk@Honey, a kosher cybercafe in Great Neck," Lauren quits, slamming a convincing yet invalid plane ticket on his desk for effect. Eli, panicked about losing his most overworked employee, lures her back with the promise of a two-week reporting trip to Montana. Lauren agrees, then, working on a hot tip, heads to Wyoming instead. Meanwhile, half a continent away, special agent Charlie Blair of the FBI is heading west to Jackson Hole to infiltrate Wrath, a neo-Nazi organization that may or may not be involved in anti-Semitic subterfuge. His job is to determine the nature of the threat and "get the hell out." As he drives, Charlie's mind wanders to his wife, Stacey, who "has long since moved out of his bed, out of his house, out of his state, over to Colorado Springs so their 12-year-old daughter, Morning, can train with one of the top coaches in American figure skating." Maybe that's why Charlie's practically broke. Nonetheless, he's happy as he focuses on the road ahead of him, because he grew up outside of Jackson, on a ranch that belonged to his family for generations. Charlie knows every inch of the area, and practically everyone knows him -- at least, they did the last time he was there, some 30-odd years ago. Charlie "has been dying of a lack of purpose," but "soon he will become the man he was born to be."

Lauren and Charlie share a secret of which neither is aware: The unlikely pair are distant cousins. Isaacs devotes a third of Red, White and Blue to explaining the complex link. At first, I was worried that the story would be bogged down by historical background, but Isaacs pulls it off with energy and sharp character sketches. Isaacs depicts Lauren and Charlie's ancestors with a surprising sense of pathos, relieved by the often wry humor of their circumstances. Jake Blaustein, a gangster's protégé on New York's Lower East Side in the '20s, splits town when his boss learns that Jake has been skimming profits from his weekly deliveries (he's also courting his boss's girl on the side). Dora Schottland, "a 15-year-old orphan from somewhere east of Budapest," looks out at New York Harbor from the deck of the SS Polonia in the first decade of this century. She's two-and-a-half-months pregnant and is considering throwing herself into the whitecap-specked water. She doesn't want to tell Herschel Blaustein, her fiancé, that the child she's carrying is not his. She marries him, and because he loves her, he believes that the child is premature. But by far the most affecting chronicle is that of Sally Ann Wolf, who meets her future husband, Martin Freund, while serving him "a tuna on rye toast with tomato" at the Lexington Avenue lunch counter where she works. That day he waits outside the shop for her and walks her to the Hunter College library, where she is returning an art history book on Raffaello: "[B]y the time they reached the library...Sally Ann Wolf learned that Marty had taken the afternoon off from Steinberg & Mendelson, counselors-at-law, because once and for all, he had to know...if the beautiful girl with the luminous black eyes behind the counter at the coffee shop...was truly as wonderful as she looked." The description of their marriage is sweetly luminous. I won't reveal what happens -- suffice it to say that Isaacs will draw the lovelorn to lunch counters in flocks. (Susan, please write a book about the Freunds!)

Meanwhile -- speaking of love -- Charlie and Lauren meet in Wyoming. He notices her "heart-shaped face" as she interviews Vernon Ostergard, the leader of Wrath, and she sees Charlie waiting for Vern outside the general store. Using either women's or reporter's intuition, Lauren determines that Charlie doesn't quite fit in at Wrath. She tracks him down at the auto shop where he works and confronts him with her doubts about his affiliation. He's not sure whether to shoot her or kiss her. But ultimately the choice is clear.

This latest departure from Isaacs's standard repertoire will be a refreshing surprise for her fans. The geographical shift from east to west works for her; she's found a fresh tableau in Wyoming, and although the link to New York is a bit of a stretch, it makes sense with the familial texture Isaacs offers. The story is a timeline that has preserved the precious anecdotes that make forgotten great-aunts and uncles come alive again, an exciting read that makes transcontinental falling in love look effortless. Susan Isaacs surely adds another blockbuster to her roster of bestsellers with Red, White and Blue.

--Sharon Cleary

Kirkus Reviews

With keen humor and fine characterizations, the bestselling Isaacs's (Lily White, 1996) multi-generational saga explores the nature of American identity. Opening with a description of all-American Charlie Blair, a Wyoming FBI agent on the trail of a local militia group, and then jumping to the life of Lauren Miller, a New York reporter for the Jewish News who's uncovering the latest in anti-Semitic bombings, the narrative unexpectedly mingles their lives: unbeknownst to all, they share a great-great-grandmother and the thread of a representative tale—the struggle to become American. What or who was their missing link? On sighting the Statue of Liberty, one Herschel Blaustein proposed to little Dora Schottland (already a couple of months pregnant, thanks to a dashing cad). She prudently accepted, later bearing Jacob, who'll become Jake Blair when he makes it to Wyoming, and Ruthie, great-grandmother to Lauren. The split family tree, with one branch entering a "traditional" American frontier life, and the other remaining Jewish and New Yorkish, offers a fascinating example of the subtle changes undertaken for assimilation's sake (not to mention for the purposes of Isaacs' storytelling). When the plot returns to present-day Wyoming, Lauren spots the man of her dreams. Unfortunately, he's a new convert to Wrath, the anti-Semitic group she's in Jackson Hole to cover. Lo and behold, that handsome piece of America is our very own Charlie Blair, undercover. As things progress, he's in imminent danger from the various nut cases he's informing on. This turn of event shifts the novel's pace, turning the last pages into a race between good guys and bad. Nevertheless, thanks toIsaacs's graceful touch, the quality of the story is never jeopardized. Both on the large scale and the small, an absorbing chronicle of the American character.