The Key Party

by James Gilbert

The 1950s are remembered as the “happy days” of the 20th century, when families were intact, religion was a salient motive in people’s lives, juvenile delinquency seemed the worst sort of crime and alcohol was the drug of choice. All the national statistics seemed to bolster this impression — a high birth rate, declining divorce and a marriage proportion that made the single adult the odd person out and potentially disruptive. Of course, there was the ominous shadow cast by the Cold War, but if anything, that just intensified the local focus and inwardness of life. THE KEY PARTY is a comic-serious satire set in this suffocating world, amid the doubly claustrophobic routine of golf matches, weekly bridge games and Saturday night cocktail parties. Four couples, living along a street adjacent to a golf course, have intertwined relationships based upon their proximity and their similar interests. From the outside, their marriages seem placid and happy, but in fact, a better depiction would be monotony and predictability with an undercurrent of anger and dissatisfaction. One evening, at a cocktail party celebrating the wedding anniversary of one of the couples, this simmering discontent boils over, and the group makes a collective decision — out of boredom and the urges of alcohol — that has extraordinary and unexpected consequences for all of its members and for the small town in which they reside.

252 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 25, 2017

About the author

I always wanted (and intended) to write fiction but I had to wait beyond a profession in academics to begin my second life as a novelist. As a historian, I published ten books on American culture, and I was fortunate enough to spend a number of years as visiting professor in Europe and Australia. This was immensely satisfying, but it still didn't fulfill my desire to write imaginative works--to be free from the objectivity demanded by the history profession.
Toward the end of my academic career, I began to become aware--painfully aware--of the limitations of historical writing, and I turned to fiction because of its ability to imagine (without footnotes) the interior thoughts, motivations, and expression of character.
I began my new career cautiously. My first venture was a self-published book of short stories, entitled, SECRETS AND STRANGERS. This was really an apprenticeship for my next book entitled THE KEY PARTY (a satire on the golf community where I grew up).
My next novel, ZONA ROMANTICA, was published in the spring of 2020 with the amateur sleuth, Amanda Pennyworth, the American Consul to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Completely different from my first novel, it is a mystery in an exotic, but familiar setting.
A third novel appeared in October, 2020, entitled TALES OF LITTLE EGYPT. This was a new genre of writing for me and took the unusual format of thirteen integrated stories about imaginary characters who lived in Marion, Illinois at the turn of the 19th Century, in the unique area called "Little Egypt."
Following that, I returned to writing mysteries, and published MURDER AT THE OLYMPIAD, also set in Puerto Vallarta and with the same sleuth as ZONA ROMANTICA.
The third book in this Amanda Pennyworth series, and appearing just now is MURDER AT AMAPAS BEACH.
And finally, there is a new work in the Pennyworth series entitled: MURDER ON THE SET.
All of my novels, (and I think necessarily), reflect my experiences and memories disguised and re-imagined by fiction. TALES OF LITTLE EGYPT, for example, is loosely based upon my childhood summers spent in Southern Illinois, and the extended family which is my heritage there. And the mystery series set in Puerto Vallarta is based on several trips to that popular tourist destination and my fascination with the mixture of cultures (Mexican and American) that define this vacation Mecca. It seemed to me the perfect setting involving a sleuth who must navigate between two cultures to solve a crime.

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[Tony Cohen · Rating 1 out of 5]

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