HUMPHREY AND ME

The fictionalized life and legacy of a forgotten progressive, through the eyes of a protégé.

Self-described shy kid Ray Elias, a white Jewish boy from Long Island, becomes an overnight celebrity when he scores the winning goal for his high school soccer team. The news, first of the Birmingham church bombing that kills four little Black girls, and, later, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, shocks his entire family and intensifies Ray’s social conscience. Brody then turns to Hubert Humphrey, whose first-person narrative alternates with Ray’s. It’s 1964, and Humphrey fulfills his promise to Kennedy to champion the pending Civil Rights bill. Brody’s ambitious novel attempts to both depict the era in all its turbulence and moral complexity and tell the story of Humphrey and Elias, and it often succeeds. After viewing a documentary about Humphrey’s run for the presidential candidacy, Ray feels an “instant connection.” While Ray goes to college, his best friend ends up in Vietnam. Humphrey, meanwhile, has become Lyndon B. Johnson’s vice president and sits in cabinet meetings in which the war predominates. Ray’s activism leads to an introduction to Humphrey and later a role in Humphrey’s 1968 presidential campaign. Through the final decade of his life, Humphrey stumbles but struggles to do right. Brody, who was inspired by his own relationship with Humphrey, packs the novel with significant historic details, albeit sometimes at the expense of compelling storytelling.

An important chapter in American history told with clarity and honesty.