An artfully rendered, suspenseful look at an imaginary turn in Nixon’s presidency.
A historical novel that cleverly postulates an alternate reality in which President Richard Nixon refuses to resign.
The author, former chief of staff to Nixon, is well-positioned to pen a novel based on Nixon’s drama-ridden presidency. Taylor’s (Patterns of Abuse, 1988) second book follows the events on the day Nixon announced his intention to vacate the White House in 1974. In this version, without informing his closest advisers, Nixon decides to remain in the Oval Office. In order to properly defend himself against his Watergate accusers, the president invokes the 25th Amendment, which allows him to temporarily hand over his executive powers to Vice President Gerald Ford. Only one person, an unheralded and green staffer, Emily Weissman, seems to be in the know; Nixon asked her to help him craft his bombshell remarks. What ensues is the chaos that often accompanies uncertainty. Will Nixon’s unprecedented transfer of power generate the appearance of national weakness, potentially emboldening North Vietnam to defy a standing peace accord with the South? Will a battered Republican Party, likely to lose even more ground in the upcoming congressional elections, be further demoralized or find renewal in Nixon’s intransigence? Even mundane practical matters seem difficult to settle decisively: Does the Constitution mandate that Ford be sworn in? Emily, a staunch Nixon loyalist, is the beating heart of the narrative, rising to the challenge of history-making. And to complicate matters, she falls for a calculating Reagan operative who takes the other side in an internecine war brewing within the Republican Party. The prose is razor-sharp and historically astute, and the dialogue is crisp and witty. Consider this gem from the staff secretary at the National Security Council; he’s talking to the White House operator after Nixon handed the baton to Ford: “ ‘This is Mr. Szabados at the NSC. May I please speak with the president?’ ‘Which one?’ she said. ‘The one who bombed Cambodia.’ ”
An artfully rendered, suspenseful look at an imaginary turn in Nixon’s presidency.Pub Date: July 17, 2014
ISBN: 978-1499530834
Page Count: 312
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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