Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?

Recently the local writer's group heard Amanda Cockrell, one of my former professors, give a talk about the Hollywood blacklist, which happened in the 1940s through the early 1960s. It's also known as the McCarthy era.

Professor Cockrell explained how her parents, who were screenwriters at the time, sometimes did not have work, but never knew if it was because they were on some list somewhere or if that was just the nature of the freelance screenwriting business.

Apparently, though, the time period left a mark on my professor, who could remember people talking about how much harm the "blacklist" did to folks.

She recently released a book, called Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?: A Novel of the Hollywood Blacklist. 

I have read it. 

She takes the dark history of the Hollywood blacklist and turns it into an entertaining novel about friendship, betrayal, loyalty, and the consequences of choices made when fear takes over.

The story centers on Elizabeth “Liza Jane” Sydney, an aging Hollywood star whose unusual will requires that she be buried in the oak grove behind her home. When she dies, an assortment of relatives, friends, former lovers, enemies, beneficiaries, and assorted Hollywood characters descend on the little California town, determined either to carry out her wishes or overturn them. As the story moves between Liza Jane’s later years and the Hollywood of the 1940s and ’50s, the reasons for her peculiar final demand, along with the secrets behind it, gradually emerge.

What makes the novel particularly effective is that the blacklist isn't simply historical background. Cockrell shows how political fear and suspicion can turn ordinary human relationships into impossible moral choices. Who do you protect? When do you speak up? And what happens when protecting one person puts someone else at risk?

The characters are lively, complicated and occasionally downright outrageous. Cockrell clearly knows her Hollywood. But beneath the entertaining story is something much more serious: a reminder that political persecution doesn't end when the headlines disappear. The damage can follow people and their families for decades.

This is a fascinating piece of historical fiction, and an especially good choice for anyone interested in old Hollywood, McCarthyism, or the complicated ways that loyalty and betrayal can shape a life.

The author at the podium.