‘Jack 1939’ re-imagines JFK as a spy

Enough has been written about the life of John F. Kennedy to assure us that the 35th president of the United States knew how to keep a secret.

And now novelist Francine Mathews (The Alibi Club) asks us to imagine one more — a young JFK working as a spy for President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

It's a daring concept, even if it does induce a bit of eye rolling at first blush. But Mathews, an author with plenty of experience with historical fiction who also spent four years as an intelligence analyst with the CIA, manages nicely, delivering a brisk thriller that defies the odds.

Weaving historical fact with neatly manufactured invention, Jack 1939 finds the perpetually ill, 22-year-old JFK pressed into secret service by FDR. With a second world war on the horizon and Roosevelt's unprecedented third term hanging in the balance, the president asks Jack to be his eyes and ears in Europe and follow a money trail that leads to Nazi Germany and threatens to tip the balance in the next U.S. election.

FDR, it seems, feels a kinship with the charming and reckless JFK, who in 1939 is about to take a six-month break from his senior year at Harvard to travel through Europe and gather research for his thesis. (One that would eventually be published as Why England Slept, an examination of the appeasement policy of the British government — one supported by JFK's father, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., then U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom.)

"The man in the wheelchair looked at Jack Kennedy, and saw something he recognized," writes Mathews. "Something he'd learned to respect. Something he was himself. A survivor."

So off goes JFK, armed with his notorious charm and intelligence — but hamstrung by his perpetually weak constitution — into the fray and his own heart of darkness. His adversaries, of course, are more than worthy opponents, with a particularly sadistic Gestapo henchman topping the list.

And though we never doubt that Jack will survive, this JFK is surprisingly and touchingly vulnerable.

Naturally, as is usually the case in any history involving JFK, there are women. Lots of women. But one Mata Hari-like figure in Jack 1939 stands out and threatens to undo the callow spy who loves her.

It's no small feat to take a historic figure who looms as large in real life as John F. Kennedy, place him in an improbable fantasy and not strain credulity. But in this case, Mathews has accomplished her mission.