Comparable to Megan Abbott’s Dare Me, Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, Roberto Bolano’s Savage Detectives, and Jonathan Franzen’s Crossroads, the story involves a group of diverse, non-conformist teenagers in high school during the Reagan era. With punk rock music as its soundtrack a group of teens discover Marxism and romance in the heart of Ronald Reagan’s America and find that in Orange County California asserting one’s sexual, political and racial identity can be hazardous to one’s health.
Comparable to Megan Abbott’s Dare Me, Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, Roberto Bolano’s Savage Detectives, and Jonathan Franzen’s Crossroads, the story involves a group of diverse, non-conformist teenagers in high school during the Reagan era. With punk rock music as its soundtrack a group of teens discover Marxism and romance in the heart of Ronald Reagan’s America and find that in Orange County California asserting one’s sexual, political and racial identity can be hazardous to one’s health.
Sunshine lived at the end of a cul de sac in one of the nice houses on Vista Del Sol; a four bedroom, two and a half bath, two car garage, brown stucco palace. A crew of Latinx gardeners came once a week to keep the hedges shorn tightly, the grass manicured and hewn to the edge of black granite pathways, and with long reach pruning shears the climbing roses with their spiny green tendrils covered in blood red bulbs were cut to cling tightly to the arched cedar trellis that served as the proscenium to the home. The pool cleaners, dressed in baby blue coveralls with Orange County Pool Maintenance Inc written in white helvetica lettering on the back, arrived bi-weekly to maintain the pH and chlorine levels, remove any debris from the pool, do preventive maintenance on pumps, filter, chlorinators, and clean and disinfect the pool deck area. The pool was rarely used. It had been years since the whole family had been there at the same time. All three of them.Â
Sunshine carried the key to the front door on a silver beaded necklace she had nicked from her mom’s jewelry box. She leaned down, gripped the dangling key, stuck it in the lock and let herself in. She dropped her backpack on the sofa and went directly to the kitchen. She turned on the little television that sat on the counter. A stentorian voice spoke over various images of masked terrorists, atomic bomb explosion and other anxiety inducing images, and then the DOW logo. “This program was made possible by a grant from the Dow Chemical Company.” The voice reiterated. A gray haired talking head came on.Â
“Good evening. I'm Frank Reynolds. The United States moved forward today with plans to support its friends in the Arab world, mainly Egypt and Sudan and to caution its enemy Colonel Quaddafi of Libya…”
As Frank Reynolds continued Sunshine reached into the liquor cabinet and gathered a bottle of gin and one of vermouth and put them on the kitchen counter. From the shelf above the liquor cabinet she pulled down a cocktail shaker and a jigger. She poured the exact amounts she had seen her father use into a jigger and then into the shiny stainless-steel shaker; six parts gin to one part vermouth, and shook it vigorously. She took a chilled martini glass from the refrigerator, put it on the counter, removed the cap from the shaker, and poured it into the glass. Opening a jar of olives from the counter, she plopped one into the glass, took a sip, smiled, and absently watched the news.Â
Walking away as the newscaster began to talk about the civil war in Nicaragua and Reagan's support of the Contra's, Sunshine went through a sliding door, out onto the patio in the backyard and sat down on an aqua blue nylon strung chaise lounge. She sipped her martini and looked out onto the dense verdurous lawn; she thought how in science class they studied photosynthesis, wavelengths, and cellular compounds called organelles and how because chlorophyll, grass absorbs light at two wavelengths, red and blue reflecting green. So the grass appears green but is actually red and blue. And if the grass is kept in darkness, it will turn white and die. She thought that nothing was as it appears, including herself. She put on her Walkman headphones. The song "White Riot" by the Clash played. She sang along. “White riot, I want a riot, white riot, a riot of my own.”
She didn’t really want a riot, and she wasn’t exactly white, Japanese-Jewish, but she was definitely bored with the U.S.A. She looked at the tranquility of her private suburban sanctuary and thought, I don’t hate this. In fact, I love it. And I love a martini every day after school and kind of love that my parents are never home. I also wonder what it would be like if they were. Home. But this way is good too. And then she began to cry. It wasn’t so much succumbing to tears that emanated from her eyes as it was just relinquishing control for a few moments. Losing control while something cleared for her.
Spoilers: The teen years are a time to explore connections to the world around us. To find ideologies that speak to us, friends that accept us, and breaking familiar patterns while discovering new ones. JC Hopkins YA novel, I Was a Teenage Communist, is about that.
In 1981 Orange County, California, a group of high school misfits are fed up with the Capitalist Materialistic Reaganomics world around them. They are interested in the philosophies expressed by Karl Marx and become fascinated by Socialism, Marxism, and Communism. Despite personal turmoil in their lives, the teens surreptitiously distribute through their school a newsletter that expresses their newfound beliefs and challenges the system that they see around them.
The protagonists are an eclectic group of outcasts. They consist of: Sunshine, a trans female trying to live her life truthfully. Davy, AKA Savior is a smooth talking philosopher fascinated with religious and spiritual questions. Geraldo is a firebrand ready to embrace the paths of his friends and older brother as his world crumbles around him. Tommy is a musician obsessed with conspiracies. Tommy's brother, Barry is the quiet leader and is described as a “legitimate red.” Finally, there's Charles, Geraldo’s older brother who is a political activist and the teens’ mentor. Through an eventful school year of bullies, romances, break ups, neglect, abuse, coming out, parental separation, activism, punishment, and politics, the kids make their voices and views heard.
I Was a Teenage Communist uses political ideologies as a framework to capture the conflicted and complex personal lives of the young protagonists. That's not to say that politics isn't important. It absolutely is in this book. These kids are motivated by the society that surrounds them. They see income inequality, American Imperialism, Reagan’s reactionary policies, jingoistic patriotic propaganda, the superficial “Greed is Good'' Yuppie culture, Christian Nationalism making its first links to the Republican party, rejection towards the LGBT+ community, and a sharp decline in women's and minorities’ rights. These are problems and issues that shaped that time period and honestly haven't gotten any better in 2024. If anything they have gotten worse. It's easy to see why someone would want to embrace a political structure that is contrary to what they are faced with every day.
Even if the Reader doesn't agree with their political ideology, what they may understand and relate to are the reasons that the protagonists embrace Communism. Everyone is looking for some reason and need that isn't being filled by their known world. Geraldo is looking to make his voice heard and a surrogate family when his actual family falls apart and are caught up in their own problems. Davy is looking for spiritual answers that aren't being fulfilled by the religion around him and artistic and creative freedom. Sunshine and Tommy are looking for acceptance towards their sexuality and gender identity. Barry is looking to make some noise. Charles is looking for a way to hold onto his ideals as maturity and stability hover near him. This is a lost group looking for a way to be found.
Politics is important to the characters in this book but what also emerges are their personal problems. Teenagers by and large are emotional, reckless, thoughtless, immature, rebellious for the sake of being rebellious, argumentative for the sake of arguing, snarky, obnoxious, inquisitive, loyal to their friends, sensitive, curious, and idealistic. The protagonists are all of these traits and more. Sometimes, they are written so broadly that they almost reach parodic or satiric proportions. However, there are also layers of humanity that make them whole figures that are meant to be understood and not laughed at.
The characters follow their Communist path as they are faced with various conflicts. Geraldo and Charles's father walked out on them and their mother responded by having an affair with a colleague. Geraldo begins to date Maria, an undocumented immigrant and the troubles that she endures make him even more determined to fight the system. Charles’ relationship with his girlfriend, April, becomes more complicated when his mother gets involved with her father.
Davy is torn between his spiritual philosophical pursuits and his basest sexual longings. He hops from girl to girl as much as he moves from one religious path to another. Tommy weighs a new romance with Sunshine and his acceptance of her identity. The cause means everything to Barry so he doesn't have much in the way of a private life. He tries to keep his friends as focused and driven as he is as they make their plans.
By far the darkest and most heartbreaking subplot is that of Sunshine's. She is comfortable with her gender identity in front of her friends and new boyfriend despite parental objections. Those objections graduate from words to actions as Sunshine's parents put her into a conversion therapy center. Hopkins does not skimp on the details about how the experience is physical and psychological torture that traumatizes her. Her ties to her friends are strengthened as they try everything that they can do to get her out. However the bonds with her parents are forever weakened as they allow such a cruel and dangerous ordeal to happen to the child that they should have loved and accepted.
I Was a Teenage Communist is a great mixture of how the political and personal affect young people. It is a book that is better read than dead.