ABC-TV commentator Greenfield offers an antic first novel with a deadly serious point about the absurd perils posed by the electoral college. Two days after narrowly defeating his Democratic rival, the Republican president-elect of the US dies in the wake of a botched photo op. Almost everyone in the country, including Al DeRossa (a network TV analyst who more or less anchors the set-piece narrative), assumes the departed's running mate will be sworn in as chief executive come January. This prospect appalls professional pols and the public alike since the GOP's nominee for vice president is a blue-blooded boob by the name of Theodore Pinckney Block. As it happens, Teddy Blockhead (as he's widely known) is not a shoo-in because, while nominally pledged to vote for their parties' candidates, the nation's 535 electors are not actually bound to do so. One of the first to appreciate the implications of free agency is Dorothy Ledger, an elector from Michigan who confounds the Republican National Committee and the country when she raises points of order at an open meeting convened to fill the vacancy on the party's ticket with Block. Her stand at what was supposed to be a pro forma exercise unleashes a full-blown constitutional crisis and much behind-the-scenes deal-making. Contributing to the chaos are players like W. Dixon Mason (a charismatic black populist who trades on racial strife), lobbyist Jack Petitcon (``the Hebrew from the Bayou''), and a host of vaultingly ambitious campaign aides. At the close, Teddy Blockhead's good breeding helps produce a makeshift resolution of the succession problem, but not before Greenfield has had a field day with Washington's establishment, the media's feeding frenzies, idealogues whose ethics could most charitably be described as flexible, and other of federal government's less edifying pilot fish. A grand entertainment cum history lesson whose triumphant bad taste, genuine wit, and uncommon sense could and should make it a landslide winner in the marketplace. (Film rights to Savoy Pictures; author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-13812-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ambitious, absorbing caper that’s smartly paced, tough-minded and infused with emotional depth.
Mallon’s latest historical novel (after Bandbox, 2004, etc.) takes us back to the nominally peaceful mid-1950s, when the twin menaces of Communism and homosexuality were the real enemies of all things American.
Taking a page or two from Gore Vidal, Mallon juxtaposes the progress of Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s vindictive Un-American Activities Committee with the (similarly verboten) “subversion” practiced by closeted State Department whiz Hawkins Fuller (of godlike face and form, and shifting loyalties) and the young naïf who worships him. Callow senatorial aide Tim Laughlin is soft-shelled meat for the rapacious sexual appetites of the “Hawk”: A gentle, good Catholic boy who hoped political life might make a man of him, he refuses—even in the confessional—to repent of the dark pleasures to which Fuller subjects him. Their relationship takes place over a span of several years marked by the Korean War’s conclusion, the Suez Crisis, the Hungarian Revolution and the looming national prominence of V.P. Richard Nixon and Sen. John F. Kennedy. Though the large load of exposition required is not always successfully dramatized, we do learn much about the major issues of the time, and Mallon proves adept at making complex geopolitical matters flesh by filtering them through the viewpoints and agendas of both his principal fictional characters and a lively horde of historical ones, including Washington columnist Mary McGrory, Joseph McCarthy’s duplicitous attack dog Roy Cohn and miscellaneous members of Congress. The fallout from power politics is vividly shown in its destructive relation to Tim Laughlin’s selfless love and vulnerable idealism, as the Hawkins Fullers of the world ride the bubble of their charm, over bodies too numerous to count.
An ambitious, absorbing caper that’s smartly paced, tough-minded and infused with emotional depth.Pub Date: May 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-375-42348-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Bleak, stately, terrifying, and moving: It's not just the wonderful story and completely original, perfectly American...
A handsome young psychopath begins a spree of train robbery and murder in the West Texas border country, and the victimized railroad hires the legendary Ranger Captain Woodrow Call, aging hero of McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, to stop him.
Gabby, funny Gus McCrae is in his grave, but years later other veterans of McMurty's epic cattle drive live on. Woodrow Call is nearly an old man, still maintaining his reputation as the greatest manhunter in the West. Living nearby, Pea-Eye, Call's old corporal, is a farmer married to Lorena, the gracefully fading beauty who once worked as a prostitute. Pea-Eye and Lorena, the only teacher at the little local school, have five children. Captain Call's final manhunt begins with orders from Colonel Terry, president of the railroad whose trains have been knocked off and passengers murdered by coldblooded Joey Garza. Call summons Pea-Eye to ride with him as he has always done, but Pea-Eye, who almost desperately loves his farm and family and who is beginning to feel his age, refuses the Captain for the first time in his life, and Call has to begin his hunt with no help other than that of Mr. Brookshire—the Brooklyn accountant Col. Terry sent to mind his money. The manhunt is almost immediately complicated by the return of Mox Mox, a murderous pervert who likes to torture and burn his victims. Mox Mox is working the same territory as Joey Garza, a beat also patrolled by the gunslinger John Wesley Harding. It's really more than Call can handle, no matter how quickly the terrified Mr. Brookshire loses his city-bred helplessness. As Call slowly tracks Garza, Maria (Garza's mother) sets out to save her son; a guilt-ridden Pea-Eye finally rides off to join his old boss; and Lorena follows her husband. Everybody who survives winds up in Joey's hometown for the showdown.
Bleak, stately, terrifying, and moving: It's not just the wonderful story and completely original, perfectly American characters; McMurtry writes as well about aging as has ever been done.Pub Date: Aug. 23, 1993
ISBN: 0-671-79281-4
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1993
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