Huntington Beach teen hopes book will inspire readers to seek common ground
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Edison High senior Kevin McGowan considers himself a history and politics buff, and talking to him for a few minutes about those subjects certainly bears that out.
“I’m someone who loves to learn,” said McGowan, who was in middle school when the coronavirus pandemic began. “When COVID-19 happened, you know, there wasn’t a lot of learning going on over Zoom. I like to tell people that when people my age were at home during COVID, they turned on ‘Stranger Things’ on Netflix. I turned on a documentary on PBS.”
Six years later, McGowan has poured his passions into a work of historical fiction he wrote and self-published. “The Courage of a Congressman” was released earlier this month and is available on Amazon. It was McGowan’s senior project through Edison’s Center for International Business and Communication Studies (CIBACS) program.
The novel was written from the perspective of character Jack Carson, a Korean War veteran who in 1960 becomes a U.S. representative and later a senator, as well as a conservative icon from Ohio.
Carson has fictional interactions with major historical figures including John F. Kennedy, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and others. Along the way, he holds fast to his beliefs as those of his country — and his Republican party — change around him.
His political career lasts all the way until the Biden and Trump presidencies of the last decade.
“It’s not a book that in any way is meant to be one-sided,” McGowan said. “It’s a book that I really wanted to show a lot of independence. My main character, who’s fictional, may have his own side, but at the end of the day he chooses country over a party.”
McGowan said he had been working on the book on and off throughout high school. When his parents, Aimee and Chuck, went to Edison’s back-to-school meeting this year, they were told by CIBACS coordinator Lori Chlarson that a novel could work as a senior project.
McGowan credited his mother for pushing him to get the book finished, as well as editing it.
As his political career is ending, Carson gives a speech at the climax of the book in 2021 — about the same time that McGowan began working on it.
McGowan said he hopes to encourage his peers to be politically active.
“There’s a lot of talk right now with young people in politics, and out with the old and in with the new,” McGowan said. “I’m someone who supports that to an extent, but I think that I really wanted the readers to have to make their own conclusions about that. Is it good to have someone this old in power? Should we have younger leadership? And I want younger leadership, but I think we can have that while also having experienced politicians in power.”
Chlarson, who is also McGowan’s English teacher, has been reading “The Courage of a Congressman” recently.
McGowan showcased his book during the CIBACS seniors’ final presentation on May 9, which was done for the first time in a trade show format this year.
“Kevin’s a great student, and he’s also a history buff,” Chlarson said. “He just loves history and loves government. It was of extreme interest to him, and that’s kind of the thing that we hope that [the students] will do [for their senior project], is something that’s a true passion. Some kids kind of mail it in, but very few, because by the time that they get to this class, it’s the elite 37 out of 111 kids that they start with. So, you know these kids are pretty motivated.”
McGowan, who is 18 and a registered Republican, said he does see a bit of himself in the main character of his book and his independent spirit. He is headed to Orange Coast College next fall, where he plans to major in — what else? — political science.
Last year, he was able to interview and shadow current Huntington Beach City Councilman Pat Burns.
McGowan said he is optimistic that his generation will be able to move forward and find some kind of common ground. That’s been a topic in his English class, which has been reading the George Orwell dystopian novel “1984” recently.
“You know, I don’t know if democracy is on the brink, but it’s definitely being tested right now,” McGowan said. “I have a lot of faith in history and in humanity, because especially with the research of this book, I’ve researched some dark times, whether that was the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights era. We’ve struggled as a country before, but I have a lot of optimism in history and faith in humanity that we shall overcome.”
