THE PATSY

An alternate history of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Hupp’s debut novel opens in 1987 deep in an underground bunker which has housed several thousand Americans from a 1968 nuclear fallout (in the novel’s version of history, Kennedy wasn’t assassinated, and the United States and Russia unleashed nuclear arms against each other). Special Agent Wayne Bronson, now in his 40s after an adulthood spent mostly underground, is an expert marksman and close friend and mentor to Terry “Ratz” Ratzkowski, a young man who moved with his neurosurgeon father into the bunker when he was 3 years old. Together, the men are part of an elite group of special agents, and Wayne, their top marksman, is about to be given his dream assignment. A doctor in the bunker has recently discovered how to time travel: Swap the traveler’s consciousness into that of someone from the past who’s near death. Using this imperfect method, Wayne’s superior wants to send him into the consciousness of the soon-to-be-infamous Lee Harvey Oswald so that Wayne can assassinate President Kennedy and, they hope, prevent the mistakes that led to nuclear war in Kennedy’s second term. Wayne “arrive[s]” in 1963 just in time to regurgitate the pills from Oswald’s suicide attempt, and he sets about the work of his mission, though he makes time, of course, to meet a girl, the inimitable Carly Ferguson. If Hupp’s debut sounds like fun, that’s because it is. Despite a crowded field of JFK conspiracy works, Hupp’s angle adds something fresh to the subgenre of JFK-centered alternate fiction. Wayne, while maybe not a groundbreaking narrator, brings enough humor to the proceedings to keep readers entertained: “Was making new friends and going out for some beers really going to alter the timeline of civilization? Fuck that.” Hupp occasionally leans too heavily into referencing a historic event that hasn’t happened yet, only to mention it will occur later if the mission is successful, but one is apt to forgive him for having a little too much fun with this premise.

A snappy, often satisfying smirk-inducing alternative take on an infamous day in American history.