Reader's Guide to Fool’s Errand

When I started thinking about making The Beat on Ruby’s Street into part one of a series, I wanted to expand on the characters Ruby encountered and bring her out of Greenwich Village to experience a wider world. In wanting Ruby to grow, I felt I needed to grow the world around her—and the 1950s were the perfect time to do that.

I don’t know what made me land on the Blacklist exactly, because I didn’t grow up hearing much about it. After seeing a film about Dalton Trumbo, I thought the Blacklist would make a perfect backdrop for Ruby and her best friend Sophie, whose mother is a comedy writer. The Beats’ rebellion against authority and Congress’s attempts to intrude on people’s lives set up the conflict, and the story expanded from there.

In addition to the Blacklist, the 1950s also brought us the start of a civil rights movement that spread across the country—creating an opportunity for Ruby to learn about what her father’s friend Bo experiences as a person of color. The journeys of Bo and Sophie inform Ruby’s choices and, I like to think, open her eyes to a lot of injustice she hadn’t been aware of before.

One of the most fascinating things I discovered while writing Fool’s Errand was that Jack Kerouac was a strong supporter of Joe McCarthy, the senator who helped create the climate that brought us House Committees and the Blacklist. I decided it was just one more piece of Ruby’s ongoing puzzle, and maybe one that would show her that no one, including people she considers enemies (or friends) can be judged without knowing more about them.

If YOU want to learn more about the Blacklist and the 1950s, there are a lot of great plays, books and movies to explore. Some of my favorites include these:

The Value of Names, a play by Jeffrey Sweet, is a riveting play about how the Blacklist affected an actor and the colleague who named him in front of the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities.

You Must Remember This is a podcast about the secret or forgotten histories of Hollywood’s first century. Search for Blacklist and you’ll find a treasure trove!

Thirty Years of Treason: Excerpts from Hearings before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1938-1968 shares the details of what happened when actors, writers and others were questioned by the House Committee—and what happened when they tried to fight back.

I Said Yes to Everything: a Memoir by Lee Grant, whose career was seriously damaged by the Blacklist for many years, and whose courage comes through in every page.

170 Years of Show Business by Kate Mostel, Madeline Gilford, Zero Mostel and Jack Gilford shares the stories of actors Jack Gilford and Zero Mostel and their families. One or two chapters contain a first-hand account of what it was like to experience the Blacklist as actors.

There are a LOT more plays, movies, podcasts and books than the ones I mentioned here—all you have to do is look for them.