Joanie Caucus' life has paralleled
those of a whole generation of women who, if not able to have it
all, at least wanted the chance to try. Liberating herself from
a disastrous marriage, Joanie joined the denizens of Walden Commune
and regrouped, running a day care center and providing inspiration
for the next generation of baby women. She headed West and attended
law school at UC Berkeley, in the course of which she also ran a
Congressional campaign for her roommate Virginia Slade. Slade lost,
but the experience won Joanie a job in Washington, working for the
victor, Lacey Davenport.
Joanie's two unsuccessful romances,
one with a priest, one with a gay man, were followed by a successful
pairing with reporter Rick Redfern. A long cohabitation, followed
by protracted negotiations, led to an outdoor marriage ceremony.
Staff work in Congresswoman Davenport's home district in San Francisco
led to a renewed friendship with old friend Andy Lippincott, cut
short by his dying of AIDS.
Slipping her husband the occasional
confidential report, serving as her daughter J.J.'s Lamaze coach,
helping to negotiate for the release of a zombified American former
Ambassador -- Joanie's harried Beltway life as a Justice Department
attorney is typical of her generation of career women. The fact
that the birth of their child Jeff occurred in the midst of birth
class made it that much more special. She and her husband have struggled
with the modern insight that two full-time jobs and parenthood are
not fully compatible. As she once put it to Rick: "I think you should
quit your job."
Similar instructions were decisively delivered to her by her employer, the federal
government, with the onset of the Bush era. Joanie's sudden transition from player to
civilian was made even more difficult by the fact that husband Rick did not made it easier.
Resuming private practice just as the stock market tanked, Joanie finds herself at
retirement age with no reasonable expectation of retirement. Son Jeff is now in college,
well-launched into in his post-nest phase, and Joanie shares a close relationship with
granddaughter Alex, the two having bonded over the strangeness of daughter J.J.
Joanie Caucus
