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Of Mark The Glove Boy by Mark Harris

Of Mark The Glove Boy

By

Pub Date: March 16th, 1964
Publisher: Macmillan

The author was assigned by Life magazine to do a comparative article on the gubernatorial campaigns of Pat Brown and Richard Nixon. Mr. Harris, who had been a newspaperman early in his career, was and is an established writer and college teacher in California. Not strange to the medium, but not one of the boys on campaign planes and trains, Mr. Harris recounts the lengthy research and the inner conflict that goes into trying to achieve a fair and balanced view in an area that is supremely difficult to divorce from the personal, emotional response. Mr. Harris identifies his political behavior as part ""political hysterics"" and records his reactions to each man and his campaign. He found strengths and weaknesses in both and gets on paper a lot of details about them that didn't fit in the article. He rejected his original feeling of dislike for Richard Nixon and documents the reasons why it crept back. The article, as it appeared in Life, is reproduced in full after an account of the editorial changes (which were not villainous) and the agonizing that can go into the change from question mark to an exclamation point. The book will have an odd dual appeal: it will be of interest to those who are compelled to work at the conundrum that is Richard Nixon; and fledgling writers will profit from the author's self analysis, thought and integrity revealed here over an article that (in the author's own word's) was ""not brilliant but adequate"".