A few summers ago, when the Supreme Court was deciding whether abortion would remain legal, I was writing a novel about Bobby Kennedy.
Article continues after ad
During the day, I was a twenty-first century woman whose body was endlessly, furiously debated by politicians and regulated by the state and there was very little I could do about it. After a few hours, I emerged as a man in his fifties who had not only ascended to the highest pinnacle of power, but also directly influenced the direction of the country.
That same summer, my sister and I decided to go to a protest in favor of limiting abortion access to books. We invited one of my brothers (usually a nice guy who supports women’s rights) to join us, but surprisingly he declined.
Before I started writing my novel, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what mid-century masculinity (and by default, power) looked like: wearing suits and smoking cigarettes and cheating on your wife—Don Draper.
“You won’t be able to find parking,” he said, “and they’ll turn Roe deer still.”
We couldn’t find parking. and they turned Roe deer still.
All this is to say that at the time, the way power worked seemed clear to me: some people (primarily men) had the power. Others did not. Power equals control. Those who had power dictated to those who did not how they could live, what they could do with their bodies, etc. And the people who didn’t have power… basically they had to suck it up until the midterms.
Yet the longer I stayed with Bobby, the less straightforward things became. Writing about male power from within does not at all match the simple authority that it appeared from outside. Instead, it was a constant negotiation between allies, rivals, public expectations, historical circumstances, and even siblings. The challenge was not just to learn how a powerful man walks and talks. It was understanding how power really worked from their vantage point, how this messy web of competing factors affected their display of power – and how to portray it without mythologizing it.
Before I started writing my novel, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what mid-century masculinity (and by default, power) looked like: wearing suits and smoking cigarettes and cheating on your wife—Don Draper. But as I delved deeper into my research, my protagonist began to complicate this perspective.
I didn’t know much about Bobby in the beginning, just a few facts I could piece together: He was Attorney General during his brother’s presidency, and, like his brother, he was assassinated.
What I learned was this: Bobby was a fumbler. Nothing came naturally to him. He was the seventh of nine children, neglected for much of his early life in favor of his older, more promising brothers. In southern France I came across a photo of a young Bobby. He is twelve years old, sitting by the garden pond, looking down at the ground. Her hands are in her lap, one wrist crossed almost self-consciously. It’s one of my favorite photos of him because you can still see that boy turning into the man he later became: a little awkward, a little unsure, constantly ducking his head from the camera.
And yet I wasn’t just writing public personas; I was also writing Private Man, and its power arose from almost exactly the opposite qualities.
In other words, Bobby was not the smooth operator you would expect from someone in power then or now. He was neither heir apparent nor spare, but the third son down from the family totemic group, he once wrote to his father: “I wish, Dad, you would write me a letter as you write to Joe and Jack telling me what you think about various political events and the war…” Bobby only became a part of the family political games when his eldest brother, Joe, died during World War II, disrupting the planned order of succession.
Power was not innate to Bobby; It was accidental, arising from family dynamics and chance. It’s been practiced, perfected, worked on. Most of all, it was the performance.
Throughout the fifties, Bobby wielded, calibrated, and recalibrated his power to serve his family’s political objectives. At first, he was a cold warrior working under the notorious Senator McCarthy; Then he was a Crusader investigator working on corruption; And through it all, his brother’s shrewd campaign manager and shadow self have been working closely with him to build an increasingly well-crafted political machine in the lead-up to Jack’s bid for the presidency.
Over time, his public persona boiled down to one word: “ruthless.” in 2016 film jackieWhich tells the story in the immediate aftermath of JFK’s assassination, with Bobby expressing his sadness to Jackie that his legacy has been ruined with Jack’s death. “We could have done a lot more,” he says. “Civil rights, the space program. Vietnam…we overcame Vietnam. Now Johnson has to end it.” No trace of sorrow for his murdered brother; Only the disappointment that the keys to the kingdom have been lost. This is exactly the sort of insensitive caricature of him that fits in with the public persona he cultivated, which was very much in line with male power ideals.
And yet I wasn’t just writing public personas; I was also writing Private Man, and its power arose from almost exactly the opposite qualities.
Take this episode for example: In the summer of 1956, shortly after Jack’s stellar performance at the Democratic National Convention, which thrust him into the national spotlight, Jackie Kennedy suffered a stillbirth. The baby, a girl, would have been her first child.
Losing a child at any age or stage or era is undoubtedly traumatic for the parents involved; Yet it was not Jack Kennedy who sat at his wife’s bedside. He was abroad, on holiday after a tough political conference. It was Bobby who arrived at the hospital in the middle of the night to visit Jackie, and Bobby later made arrangements for the child’s burial.
And yet, how to credibly write a man in a high place when I had no actual experience of being a man in a high place?
I found hundreds of other examples when Bobby was the one person his family depended on. He was trusted with the most intimate emotional labor in his family; There was assurance of being a caregiver, someone who cared. As Jackie Kennedy said, “You knew that, if you were in trouble, he would always be there.”
Bobby’s role within the Kennedy family, vital to the functioning of the broader Kennedy political machine, was based on caring, loyalty, devotion to his brother – all traits we typically define as more “feminine” than “masculine.”
This was not the version of male power that I knew existed. I expected ambition and ruthless political maneuvering; I came prepared for the scenes of smoke-filled back rooms and Congress offices. But here was Bobby, sitting by Jackie’s bed, probably looking at the floor, one of his wrists tied in his hand.
American history spoon-feeds us the idea of national exceptionalism built on the backs of great men. It’s patriarchy packaged as patriotism – you don’t need us to tell you that. And the Kennedys are part of this mythos. So, having been used to believing in such great man history since elementary school, I was faced with another challenge: How could I portray male power honestly, without mythologizing it in the way I was taught?
I think of Claire Way Watkins’ essay on pendingWhere she describes the activity around which she organized her life as a young woman: “watching boys do things.” When I first read this essay in a graduate workshop, it resonated with me; that was a lot My Life was like that as a young woman. My initial reaction was something like “Yeah, you know what? Fuck it. I’m done looking at men!”
But now a confession: While writing my book, I was thrilled to see boys doing something. I was thrilled to see things through a man’s eyes, swimming in a world that was created in my mind, even if imaginary. Writing Bobby was a refuge, a place to vent about the daily complexities of experiencing the world in a woman’s body.
And yet, how to credibly write a man in a high place when I had no actual experience of being a man in a high place?
I don’t think you need to know what it’s like to run a campaign or hold political office or roam the corridors of power to write about these things. you can take whatever you want to do Learn and use it to explain what you don’t know and what I know Did I knew he was my brother. The four of them: frustrating, deliberately naïve, arch man-eaters – but funny, unexpectedly thoughtful, some of my favorite people in the world.
The more I wrote, the more I saw that the men in my story weren’t little gods in suits; They were people just like my brothers – flawed, contradictory, presenting an image of themselves to the world that often conflicted with their personal self. I tried to think of Bobby not as a monument, but as a normal person as I knew him. After all, if my brother could be simultaneously annoying, affectionate, and self-aggrandizing, why couldn’t a man in the history books?
i tried to recreate bobby It is possible As it has happened; That what It is possible Said; How is that It is possible Have behaved. I’m sure I did something wrong; But Bobby taught me something else while writing this: Power, like people, is slippery. You may be surprised by what you find.
__________________________________
men like us by Carson Markland, available from Algonquin Books.
