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Young Bernstein's reaction was to become a patriotic rebel -- class air-raid warden, supersalesman of Defense Bond stamps, proud wearer of an I LIKE IKE button -- and a marginal student who eventually skipped college to become a newspaper copy clerk. He also, quite understandably, became interested in whether his parents had actually been Communists. When he was eight, he first blurted out the question to his father. "I remember the silence that followed and my not daring to look at him," Bernstein writes. "My question offered no escape; there is no Fifth Amendment for eight-year-olds." His father tried to skirt the question, speaking instead about the irrelevance of party membership and the persecution of progressives. "I didn't ask any questions when he finished explaining, and I'm sure he guessed that my silence meant that I knew. It took twenty-five years before I asked him that question again."
The answer, deftly treated, is that both his parents had been, for a short period, party members. Therein lies the main source of tension throughout the book: grappling with his father's wish that he not reveal their secret. "You're going to prove McCarthy right, because all he was saying was that the system was loaded with Communists," says his father. "And he was right."
The "loyalties" of the title thus refer to more than just the allegiance Bernstein's parents had to the Communist Party and to their Government. The real struggle in the book is between Carl's loyalty to (and love for) his parents and his search for the truth about their lives. At times his quest becomes traumatic. Bob Woodward makes cameo appearances, comforting his former partner when he breaks into tears at the memory of a childhood schoolmate calling his mother a Communist.
For all his honesty, Bernstein upholds the honor of his parents. They were never subversives, never disloyal to their country, he says. His sensitivity to Alfred and Sylvia (both still living) means that he never quite penetrates the deepest questions: Exactly why did people like them join the Communist Party? Just what did they do at their cell meetings? Was there in fact some danger in having people working for the Government whose loyalty was also to the Communist Party? And, on a more personal level, does he feel he has betrayed the father he clearly loves very deeply?
By not probing such sensitive spots too deeply, Bernstein may be doing the reader a favor. As it is, the book fairly crackles with emotional intensity and unsettling historical questions. With his rich depiction of his parents and pungent evocation of the period, Bernstein has been able to explore his controversial issues with the finesse of a jazz musician bouncing around themes that might otherwise be too hot to handle.