The boy orator
Subtitle: a novel
By: by Tracy Daugherty.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Southern Methodist University Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Dallas
Language: eng
Number of pages: 249
Subjects: Fathers and sons -- Fiction; Socialists -- Fiction; Oklahoma -- Fiction
Genres: Fiction.
Description: In Tracy Daugherty's third novel, childhood innocence and political ambition meet just prior to the First World War in the person of Harry Shaughnessy, an Oklahoma farmer's son. Gifted with a booming speaking voice and a charismatic presence, the boy learns the Socialist credo from his father, who takes him on the road - from laborers' camps to county fairs to Oklahoma City - to spread the people's gospel to farmers, miners, and oil workers.

Along the way young Harry encounters other Socialist crusaders - Eugene V. Debs, Oscar Ameringer, and the dynamic red-haired feminist Kate O'Hare. Daugherty seamlessly integrates these historical figures into the compelling fictionalized tale of his own real-life grandfather's idealistic struggle for American workers and of his inevitable disillusionment with the defeat of the Socialist cause.