Abstract
A Desire Path by Jan Shapin is a sorrowful love story that follows two star-crossed lovers, Andy Craige and Ilse Tollman, in their thirty-year effort to fulfill their desires, or, failing that, to find solace in their memories. Desire interweaves their on-again, off-again romance with their mutual friendship to Anna Mae Sloan, an American journalist who writes articles about the Soviet Union and Red China.
The novel begins shortly after the end of World War II, with Andy reflecting on how he met Ilse back in the 1930s. Andy had been a labor organizer for the United Mine Workers Union when John L. Lewis was its president. At home in the rough and tumble world of miners and management conflicts, Andy is sent to various locals to settle conflicts and keep the members loyal to Lewis. His repeated travels lead to the breakup of his marriage, and he becomes estranged from his young daughter.
Andy meets Ilse Tollman, a beautiful, mysterious woman who is married to a lawyer working at the Department of Labor. It’s love at first sight, at least for Andy. When not out in the field organizing, Andy finds excuses to see Ilse, which begins a long courtship and a lasting friendship.
Another prominent character in the book is Andy and Ilsa’s mutual friend, Anna Mae Sloan. Anna Mae had joined a commune in the 1930s and followed her dream to become a successful journalist and book author. When she traveled to the Soviet Union to report on conditions there, she was embraced by Lenin and Trotsky, who granted her interviews and even published her reports in the Soviet Union.
In the US and Europe, Anna Mae’s reports are widely read. She becomes a popular speaker in the West, defending the course of the Bolshevik revolution, and even interviewing Mao on the Long March.
At the end of the novel, Anna Mae is repudiated for her previous ties to Trotsky, though she never wavers in her support for the Soviet and Chinese causes. Andy, now growing old and living alone in the mountains, mends fences with his daughter and goes to live with her. Ilse, unwilling or unable to leave her lawyer husband, accepts a life of unfulfilled desires. The novel is autumnal—a dirge for the lives and the happiness that the lovers hoped for but could never reach.
Of the characters, Anna Mae is the most engaging. She is based on the famous author Anna Louise Strong, whose autobiography, I Change Worlds, chronicled the revolutionary advances and struggles in the Soviet Union and China.
For students of political history, the novel will introduce them to some of the major figures in twentieth-century politics, from Trotsky to Roosevelt, and from the United Mine Workers to the Trade Union Education League. There is a discussion of the trials in the Soviet Union, which Anna Mae admits horrified but did not surprise her.
The author Shapin deserves praise for trying to bring to life the issues and participants in this momentous historical period. However, flaws in her writing undermine her earnest efforts. For one, she repeatedly tells the reader about Andy’s organizing efforts among the miners, but she does not show us the union struggles. We never actually see him going toe-to-toe with a mine owner, no raucous meetings and votes in the local, and no actual strikes that he leads.
Likewise, Anna Mae tells Andy of her experiences in the Soviet Union. But we rarely see her living there, working, writing, or meeting with workers and officials.
In this novel, history is more referenced than lived. The love affair, which is central to the story, is somewhat tepidly drawn. We don’t feel their passions and desires, so their resulting unrequited love fails to pierce the heart.