With the Fellow Travelers series now streaming, viewers are left asking if it is based on a true story featuring real-life events. Here’s all you need to know about its inspiration.
Is Fellow Travelers based on true events that really happened?
Fellow Travelers is inspired by the Thomas Mallon fictional novel of the same name from 2007. It features certain historical events that happened in real life, but its leading characters aren’t based on real people.
Featuring eight episodes in total, the miniseries follows a historical romance thriller narrative that spans across decades. Tim Laughlin and Hawkins Fuller, played by Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer, respectively, are two political staffers who continue to love each other despite the risk of getting caught. They cross each obstacle thrown at them and strengthen their love.
After falling in for each other during the Lavender Scare during the 50s, their paths continued to cross during the 1960s Vietnam War protests, the 1970s disco-hedonism, and the 1980s AIDS crisis. While all these events took place in the real world, the steamy story of Tim and Hawk’s love intensifying throughout the events is a fictional one.
It’s worth mentioning that some real-world people, including activist Stormé DeLarverie, journalist Simeon Booker, and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, show up as characters to take the story forward. But Tim and Hawk are made-up characters picked straight out of Mallon’s novel.
Apart from Bomer and Bailey, the series also features Jelani Alladin, Noah J. Ricketts, Allison Williams, Will Brill, Linus Roache, Chris Bauer, and Erin Neufer. Ron Nyswaner is the series creator.
The official synopsis of Fellow Travelers reads:
“Decades-long chronicle of the risky, volatile, and steamy relationship between the charismatic and ambitious Hawk and the pious and idealistic Tim, two political staffers who fall in love at the height of the 1950s Lavender Scare. Through the Vietnam War protests of the 1960s, the drug-fueled disco culture of the 1970s and the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, the two men’s fiery affair only intensifies despite the constant threat of being exposed and losing everything.”
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