EXILE: The Unquiet Oblivion of Richard M. Nixon

by Robert Sam Anson ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 29, 1984

The American people may remember Richard Nixon as a perspirer impervious to make-up; but to Anson (McGovern, Gone Crazy and Back Again), Nixon is at the center of a cabal of weepers. It all started with that teraful farewell to the White House staff--watched, Anson assures us, by the folks already aboard Air Force One, who picked up on the theme and started sobbing along. Then there was Nixon sitting around with former preas aide Kenneth Clawson, discoursing on how to fashion a life out of fighting and scraping, only to reach the top and discover that the risk-taking doesn't stop: ""so you are lean and mean and resourceful and you continue to walk on the edge of the precipice because over the years you have become fascinated by how close to the edge you can walk without losing your balance."" After the comment that ""a man doesn't cry,"" the inevitable occurs: ""There was a silence, and quietly Clawson began to weep. When he looked up, Nixon was weeping as well."" Anson trades on the private Nixon who faced a medical crisis with barely the desire to live, who agonized over his memoirs, who rankled at the shabby treatment he thought he got from his successor in the White House (the pardon aside), and who Finally let out his guilt in the famous Frost interviews. We're supposed to see in this a guy who wouldn't quit, who persevered in his effort to recreate himself as a public figure, with partisan advice for his party and public advice on foreign policy. But mostly Anson does nothing to dispel the image of Nixon as a petty, slightly ridiculous figure--epitomized in small episodes such as his dinner disinvitation of CBS newswoman Diane Sawyer, formerly a Nixon aide, after she hassled him in a television interview. These are the dabs on material that is mostly drawn from public records, such as books, articles, and interview transcripts, in addition to Nixon's public utterances. The net result, including the tears, is little of interest and nothing of merit.

Pub Date: June 29, 1984

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1984

Categories: FICTION