The Bastard – John Jakes, 1974 ★★★½

Come for the Sex, Stay for the Revolution

Sex sells. That’s an idea as old as history itself. Sex sells even when the subject is history, as John Jakes amply demonstrated with the release of this, the first of eight lusty novels tracing the history of an American family spreading their seed from just before the American Revolution to the dawn of the 20^th century.

It sure worked for me as a sexually curious 11-year-old when The Bastard first came into my ken, not as a novel but as a miniseries on syndicated television. Among its stars was the fresh and lovely Kim Cattrall and that icon of horny 1970s boys, Olivia Hussey, who memorably appeared semi-nude in a popular film adaptation of Romeo & Juliet sometimes screened at school. In “The Bastard,” the two engaged in a battle of plunging necklines and flashing thighs over the title protagonist, one Philippe Charboneau.

The pulchritudinous spectacle, however circumscribed by broadcast standards of the time, was enough to propel me into a bookstore to get the unrated version. With a title like that, you knew it had to be good.

And it was.

The rhythm quickened. The girl’s hands worked up and down his back. He could feel her broken, work-blunted nails. The scratching only made him breathe more and more frantically. Uncontrollable surgings began in the depths of him, then roared outward in what his addled mind crazily decided was a most consuming, astonishing and remarkable cure for bruises and bad memories.

Then Mama walks in. Not mine, Philippe’s, putting a halt to the first of several assignations throughout this book. Marie Charboneau wants her son to have nothing to do with scullery maids, not when he’s the illegitimate son of the sixth Duke of Kentland. When she gets tipped her old lover is dying, she and Philippe set sail from France to collect on his legacy. Events and relations conspire to deny them that legacy. Soon hot-blooded Philippe is on the run, having angered his half-brother by ruining both his hand and his fiancée. Philippe finds a haven, and a cause, across the Atlantic.

That cause is really the subject of The Bastard. It’s also the subtext of the title, as revealed in an introductory quotation from former British prime minister William Pitt discussing resistance in the American colonies of North America: “The Americans are the sons, not the bastards, of England!”

Jakes strategically launched this, the first volume of his Kent Family Chronicles, to tie in with the 200^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It paid off handsomely. The Bastard and its sequels were huge Bicentennial bestsellers. By 1978, when my hormones and I enter the picture, “The Bastard” had become a grand television event, with an all-star cast that included well-known TV actors trying their hand as historical personages. See Tom Bosley, Mr. C. on “Happy Days,” as Benjamin Franklin! William Shatner as Paul Revere! And so on.

The idea of turning American history into a “Love Boat” episode should have proved ghastly. Instead “The Bastard” was a hit on television, and you see why reading the novel. John Jakes’ approach is on spectacle and cameo, not to mention plenty of set-piece action driving a fluid plot.

Philippe finds himself defending his mother from his wicked half-brother Roger; fighting off a gang of ruffians in London; singled out in an alley by a saber-wielding Redcoat after participating in the Boston Tea Party; and finally exchanging musket fire at Concord.

The sex really works, too; not only as condiment but commentary on Philippe’s journey. He finds himself in a Betty-and-Veronica situation with two women, each of whom enjoy his sex play and want him for their own. One, Alicia, is a British noblewoman who covets status and money. The other, Anne, is a Boston patriot who believes in independence – including how she conducts her life in a man’s world.

“I want you for a lover,” she tells Philippe. “With no conditions, no promises, no pledges about tomorrow or a fine house, because there’s no certainty of any of that after what happened with the tea.”

Philippe (Andrew Stevens) is presented with an opportunity to realize his true self in the New World, as well as the romantic favors of lovely Anne Ware (Kim Cattrall) in the 1978 TV adaptation of The Bastard. Image from http://www.fandango.com/thebastard_108635/plotsummary,

Like his adopted land, Philippe must choose his destiny. “No man can remain neutral in the coming struggle,” Anne tells him, and it is so for him. Will he be the ducal Philippe, represented by a letter of paternal acknowledgement his mother carries in a symbolic casket? Or will he be Philip Kent, as he christens himself after arriving in Boston?

Jakes is strictly a ham-and-egger in terms of prose stylings. He has his moments, but serves up some clunkers, too. People often talk like Wikipedia pages, offering up paragraphs of exposition on everything from the British prime minister to the role of the printing press in society.

Anne thus explains to Philip on the tactics of the chief revolutionist in Boston, Samuel Adams: “For all his questionable methods, I think Mr. Adams is correct about one thing. A small oppression only proceeds a larger one…That is what the Committee of Correspondence is trying to impress on the other colonies – what happens in Boston could very well happen to them. So we must stand together.”

As a youngster reading this, though, I found the history cram useful. For one thing, it made the sex seem even more important than it already was. It also imbued a sense of history as something living, breathing, vital, such as this account of Philip and his mates in costume getting ready to board British cargo ships to commence the Boston Tea Party.

By now, the effects of the rum punch had completely worn off. Philip felt the gnaw of fear again. So did those around him. There were furtive glances, scowls, teeth nervously chewing underlips…

The watching enlisted men and officers did not draw their weapons or attempt to interfere. Nor did the mob molest them – except verbally. The British gave back a few curses and shaken fists, but nothing more. Perhaps they were awaiting a signal? Philip started to sweat again.

The history is important to Jakes; you sense he respects it at times more than he does the characters and situations he invents. This can stiffen other exercises in historical fiction; not here.

My theory on Jakes’ success as a writer is based on first-hand observation: People come expecting to be titillated, and they are – although his sex scenes are not explicit by modern standards, featuring much groping and perfumed hair and sweaty upper lips and “soft valleys” and whatnot, they still pack a punch. But readers stick around because he makes the history matter, too.

Jakes’ other great strength demonstrated here is yarn-spinning. He came to the Kent Family Chronicles with an extensive background as a writer of fantasy, specifically the originator of a Conan-the-Barbarian type named Brak. He knows how to get your blood going, either on a bed or a battlefield, and propels you forward with a story that hardly pauses for more than a couple of pages. Chapters are short and crammed with incident.

The cameos of historical personages have the potential for coming across as silly and indulgent. At least one does fall into this category: Philippe’s encounter with the imperious British prime minister, Lord North, outside his father’s estate. Philippe refuses to move for Lord North and is upbraided for his impertinence. Philippe does this as dramatic foreshadowing for his taking up the rebel cause; otherwise the harsh encounter makes no sense.

Other encounters work both for the story arc as well as the historical context. Jakes has a great scene of Philippe calling on Benjamin Franklin as the happy inventor indulges himself in an “air bath,” sitting naked in his room with the windows wide open, explaining how this is how he combats the polluted London air.

“Is there any need for false prudery among gentlemen?” he asks an astonished Philippe, who repairs for a needed drought of Madeira.

The rest of this encounter presents Jakes with a neat opportunity to lay out the practicality of the American cause, then less a matter of open rebellion than a declaration of natural rights as they pertain to loyal Englishmen abroad, rights which Franklin argues includes not to be taxed without having a say in the matter. The idea of there being gradations to the American drive for self-actualization is one that Jakes spends much time elaborating upon. For every Samuel Adams Philip encounters, a messy firebrand of rabid revolutionary sentiment, there are practical-minded figures like Franklin for whom rebellion is more a matter of reason and basic human rights, entered into with eyes wide open and all conservative options considered.

It’s good stuff, and there is much of it to be found in The Bastard. Reading it as a kid, I found it quite gripping in the main. Reading it now as a man closer in age to Franklin than Philippe, I was happily surprised to discover how well it holds up. It’s a journey worth taking even after an age where the great mystery of sex has long passed its sell-by date.