Finale A novel of the Reagan years

Review by New York Times Review

CAN'T WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING MORE PLEASANT?, by Roz Chast. (Bloomsbury, $19.) Chast, who has contributed cartoons to The New Yorker for nearly 40 years, illustrates the experience of caring for her dying parents in this poignant and devastating graphic memoir, one of the Book Review's 10 Best Books of 2014. As our reviewer, Alex Witchel put it: "No one has perfect parents, and no one can write a perfect book about her relationship to them. But Chast has come close." THE STATE WE'RE IN: Maine Stories, by Ann Beattie. (Scribner, $15.) In these linked tales, Beattie's first collection of new stories in 10 years, psychological states matter just as much as geography. The collection traffics in ennui, with recurring characters. One is Jocelyn, a teenager living with her aunt and uncle for the summer while her mother recuperates from a mysterious illness; she is a bright spot in the world presented by the book. SOUTH TOWARD HOME: Travels in Southern Literature, by Margaret Eby. (Norton, $15.95.) Equal parts travelogue and critical inquiry, this book considers the region's literary heritage. Eby, an Alabamian by birth and upbringing, goes on pilgrimage to the haunts of 10 favorite authors, including William Faulkner, Richard Wright, Flannery O'Connor and Harper Lee. LAST BUS TO WISDOM, by Ivan Doig. (Riverhead, $16.) Known for chronicling life in Big Sky Country, Doig, who died last year, turned to Montana once more in this, his final novel. Eleven-year-old Donal Cameron, under his grandmother's care, takes a Greyhound bus from her ranch to Wisconsin, where he lives briefly with an unkind relative. Soon enough, though, he's back out West again, joined by a one-eyed sailor he meets along the way. MACHINES OF LOVING GRACE: The Quest for Common Ground Between Humans and Robots, by John Markoff. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $15.99.) In the world of artificial intelligence, there are two prevailing approaches: an aim to augment human capacities, or the goal of creating machines to do the work currently performed by people. This thoughtful analysis by Markoff, a reporter for The New York Times, wades into the ethical and philosophical questions that such technological advances inevitably raise. FINALE: A Novel of the Reagan Years, by Thomas Mallon. (Vintage, $16.95.) It's 1986 during this novel, and Reagan, partway through his second term, has yet to become canonized as the Republican Party's patron saint. Mallon - whom our reviewer, Robert Draper, called "a poised storyteller who traffics in history's ironic creases" - draws on a mix of fictional and real-life characters, including Mikhail Gorbachev and Nancy Reagan's astrologer. SISTERS IN LAW: How Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World, by Linda Hirshman. (Harper Perennial, $16.99.) The justices can be seen "as representatives of the different ways that smart, ambitious women navigated life in mid-20th-century America," Linda Greenhouse wrote here.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [September 29, 2016]

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Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* This most contemporary of Mallon's historically based novels is set amid the American political scene in late 1986. Those who remember the Reagan era will find all the happenings and brouhahas placed before their eyes again, like the War on Drugs, the AIDS crisis, the Reykjavík Summit on nuclear arms control, and the Iran-Contra disaster. All are related from numerous real and fictional characters' viewpoints, from journalist Christopher Hitchens full of verbal zingers to Jimmy Carter, a craftily disturbed John Hinckley, and a still-influential ex-president Nixon. It takes gumption to fictionalize living people, and Mallon doesn't hold back on Nancy Reagan, a constant worrier who stage-manages her husband on her astrologer's advice. On the opposite side, Pamela Harriman seeks to find the perfect Democratic candidate. An older Anne Macmurray, the heroine from Dewey Defeats Truman (1997), plays a significant role, too. Reagan himself remains inscrutable, realistically so. When former UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick calls him the most impersonally warm man I've ever encountered, she conveys his magnetism while pinning him down as well as anyone can. Despite all the scene-jumping, the transitions are seamless; there's a whirlwind of activity and abundant snappy dialogue. With his customary flair, Mallon has crafted a scrupulously researched novel that gives readers a front-row seat on world-changing events a combination that proves irresistible.--Johnson, Sarah Copyright 2015 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In this novel, Mallon (Watergate) fixes his wide-angle historical lens on the presidency of Ronald Reagan, in particular the events leading up to the exposé of the Iran-Contra affair in 1986. As befitting the author's usual literary mode, Reagan himself is a minor character in his own story. The major characters include such real-life personalities as rising English journalist Christopher Hitchens, the much-married English socialite Pamela Harriman, and would-be presidential assassin John Hinckley Jr. Worked in among these are several fictional characters, including Anders Little, an arms-control expert with a sexual secret; his friend, Anne Macmurray, an anti-nukes advocate; and her dying ex-husband, Peter Cox, a Texas contributor to Republican candidates. And of course, hovering in the background is "tan, rested and ready" Richard Milhouse Nixon in all his tragic Shakespearean glory, ever trying to restore his blackened legacy. Although largely plotless, the novel boasts a telephone book-sized cast of characters and fits them inside a chronicle large enough to encompass the Reagan-era gay revisionism of Tony Kushner's Angels in America and the gossip of Truman Capote's "La Cote Basque, 1965." What Mallon does best is dramatize the bizarre '80s intersection of Hollywood and Washington, D.C., as equal weight is given to Merv Griffin and Eva Gabor as to Pat Buchanan and Jeane Kirkpatrick, creating in the process a crazy, quilted depiction of a contradiction-filled presidential administration. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Mallon, a longtime master at fictionally realizing history (Watergate), here takes on the "Reagan years," specifically 1986. A few fictional subplots backdrop the main action, wherein a number of historical figures are given voice: Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Christopher Hitchens, even Bette Davis and John Hinckley. Except for Hinckley, the characters are nuanced, not simple pasteups. Take one of the principals, Nancy Reagan: astrology obsessed for sure but also self-aware ("The Gaze" is a ruse), reflective, and genuinely human. Those who absolutely adore or detest her will probably both be disappointed. So it is with the others. The book's centerpiece is the Iceland disarmament summit with Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev, and the tension is manifest. Readers who didn't experience this time in history-or who aren't familiar with the myriad luminaries who appear here, from Lindy Boggs through Jeanne Kirkpatrick and from Pat Moynihan to Mort Zuckerman-may feel at sea at times. But it's worth it for this well-developed snapshot of an important year. Oh, Reagan himself? He comes across as vaguely charming but unreadable to friend and foe alike. As Kirkpatrick "says" to Nixon: "You're complex, yes, but palpable. Reagan is smoke." VERDICT For all devotees of historical fiction and this time period.-Robert E. Brown, Oswego, NY © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Covering a momentous several months in 1986, this is an intriguing, humorous, even catty backstage view of the Reagan presidency from an artisan of the historical novel.Mallon (Watergate, 2012, etc.) picks up the political narrative a couple of years after his previous, Nixon-era novel. Reagan is preparing for his second summit with Gorbachev on nuclear disarmament. His wife, Nancy, who confers with her astrologer about the president's actions and with Merv Griffin on everything else, wields considerable influence in the White House. Also perfectly coiffed and politically muscular is the $100 million widow of Averell Harriman, Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman, whose funding and machinations on the Democratic side expose the complex horse-trading ahead of that year's midterm election. To a four-page list of historical figures, Mallon adds a few fictional ones tied mainly to the Iran-Contra spectacle and Washington's gay insidersdubbed the Homintern by Christopher Hitchens. The late journalist, a major character here and a subplot unto himself as he pursues the early inklings of Iran-Contra, was the dedicatee of Watergate and is described in this book's acknowledgements as a "beloved friend." The main plot, aside from history itself, concerns a popular president's sudden faltering amid crises abroad and at home. Mallon doesn't go far in plumbing the Reagan enigma that has stumped so many, but he creates revealing moments in the first couple's marriage. Historical fiction at this high level satisfies the appetite for speculation or even titillation through restraint as much as research, and Mallon rarely overdoes itthough he seems to have a weakness for insults, as in this small sample: "Pity anyone near Teddy's Cutty-Sarked breath during the delivery of all those aspirated aitches" (Hitchens on Edward Kennedy); "that little patent-leather martinet" (Nancy on John Tower); "a Faberg egg that talks" (Pat Nixon on Nancy). Mallon's version of history is close enough to fact to revive faded memories, while his imagining of who thought and said what presents some of the coherence and delights of fiction without the excesses of those "what if" rethinks scribbled by Newt Gingrich et al. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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CHAPTER 9 October 1, 1986    "This has given us a lot of ideas for ours, " said a smiling Ronald Reagan to an unsmiling Rosalynn Carter, as the incumbent president concluded a quick tour of his predecessor's new library.   "Yes," agreed Nancy, who was thinking: ideas for what not to do. All these kitsch displays: the "Peanut Brigade" banner from '76; the kids' letters--"Please stop people from killing the whales"--and worse, Carter's replies to them, signed "Jimmy."   "Good," said Rosalynn, without adding any words or warmth.   The two presidential couples filed out into the sunshine, toward the speakers' platform, as the Fort McPherson army band played "Hail to the Chief." Nancy looked over the four circular pavilions that had just been constructed on this hillside and thought they looked like a monotonous world's fair.   Still, as much as she tried, it was hard for her to dislike the Carters themselves. No matter how prudish and pickle-pussed the two of them might be, there was no getting away from how much they had done for her and Ronnie--first, by defeating the Fords, whom she had no trouble at all disliking; and then, once in the White House, by screwing up so badly they seemed to have spent their whole four years rolling out a red carpet for the Reagans. Someone on Mike Deaver's staff used to refer to the thirty-ninth president as "the Mastermind," insisting that Jimmy Carter was the greatest Republican strategist of all time.   Nancy looked back at the building they'd just exited, as if to pay the design a compliment with some extra attention. She was actually trying to take comfort in the thought of how Carter's papers were now neatly stored in towering rows of banker's boxes that ran along a huge curving wall. Even failure could be made to look like accomplishment; something settled, achieved . So maybe there was hope for her and Ronnie if things really did fall apart.   No, things could fall to such smithereens that even an illusion became impossible to construct. Nixon's library still wasn't built, and from what she heard it would be a penny arcade of cheap statues and props, while the documents it ought to house remained far away under the government's lock and key, serving the prison term that Nixon had avoided.   She and Ronnie, along with the Carters, reached the platform. Applause--and jeers--could be heard from the crowd of spectators on the hillside. Nancy for a moment couldn't tell if the disapproval related to the Sandinistas or South Africa--probably the latter, given that most of Atlanta's black establishment was here for the dedication. She looked over at Carter, who had just taken his seat; today was the first time she'd seen him in five years, since the night Ronnie had sent all the ex-presidents off to Sadat's funeral. She regarded his pursed preacherly lips and thought of the handwritten notes to Sadat and Begin now on display in the library behind them, signed "JC," as if they were memos from Christ himself, ordering the tribes in his Holy Land to make peace.   Well, she thought, it was decent of him to pout over the disrespect the protesters were showing Ronnie. But after a few more seconds she realized the reason for his sour expression: he was being protested, too! She strained to make out the chant that had gone up:             YOU TAKE THE HIGH ROAD! WE'LL TAKE THE NO ROAD!   On the flight down, one of the advance men had told her that a lot of locals opposed the four-lane highway being built to bring people here; the courts had actually halted construction for a while. These boos must be putting a bit of a damper on JC's sixty-second birthday--not that his successor's unavoidable presence hadn't already cast a pall over it. Ninety percent of the news cameras here would be leaving halfway through the program, as soon as Ronnie finished his speech.   She waved hello to Carter's little strawberry-blond granddaughter, who would cut the ribbon. The girl looked just the way awful little Amy, who'd grown up into more of a slob than Patti, had looked during JC's White House days. His deciding to quote her on "nuclear proliferation," as if she were some Quiz Kid, during the '80 debate! Another gift from the gods.   In one way it was good that she and Ronnie hadn't gotten to the White House sooner than they did. Had that happened, Patti, who actually did talk about nuclear proliferation, might have been living with them, as the world's most impossible college student, foisting people even worse than that horrible Caldicott woman on her soft touch of a father.   Nancy looked at her tiny platinum wristwatch.   ###    "I often get invited to library dedications," spoke the president. "There aren't that many people still around who knew Andrew Carnegie."   Jimmy Carter displayed his large, recently whitened teeth to the crowd, imitating amusement while he stole a glance at Mondale, the other person here who'd had the experience of playing straight man to this dunce on a national debate stage. Carter noticed, to his dismay, that Fritz's stomach, larger than when he'd last seen it, was shaking agreeably. His own vice president was actually enjoying this.   I can think of no other country on Earth where two political leaders could disagree so widely yet come together in mutual respect.   The old actor was sounding generous while really paying himself a compliment, letting the audience trick itself into thinking that the thirty-ninth president had a peanut shell's worth of respect for the fortieth. This business of pretending that we're "all Americans" just trivially separated by party labels was the domestic version of the "moral equivalence" that Reagan and his kind--chief among them Jeane Kirkpatrick, former Democrat--were always deploring on the international plane.   Reagan was now praising Carter's mother, "Miss Lillian," as well as his sister, Ruth, recently swallowed by the pancreatic cancer that stalked the family--and was likely to get them all before long. He himself was expecting a short ex-presidency, and he was determined to do something different and redemptive with it.   Jimmy Carter spoke these words in his inaugural address as governor of Georgia: "I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over."   The man being quoted adjusted his smile to something grave and appreciative; he avoided meeting Coretta King's gaze, so as not to appear to be fishing for additional compliments. But a part of him longed to have a lapel microphone into which he could say to Reagan: "Yes, and you started your 1980 campaign against me talking about states' rights in Philadelphia, Mississippi." The thought of that murderous hamlet, with three civil rights workers buried in an earthen dam, left him righteous--and ever so slightly uneasy. He had come a long way in his ideological life, as far forward as Reagan had gone backward, but he still hoped the papers from this gubernatorial campaign Reagan was referencing would remain unprocessed a while longer, lest some zealous researcher become intrigued by a few leaflets that might suggest why Jimmy Carter had actually gotten only five percent of the black Georgia vote in 1970.   . . . using his gifts--in particular, his superb intelligence . . .   Reagan made intelligence sound like a handicap, the way his aides had mocked his predecessor for actually reading the Air Force budget instead of just approving it. Looking out into the audience, Carter observed Sam Nunn, the sort of conservative Democrat on his way to extinction and thus, like a liberal Republican, highly respected. He knew that Nunn considered Reagan's supposed toughness to be the proper antidote to Jimmy Carter's own now-legendary weakness, and his jaw jutted forward at the thought of the false comparison. If he'd made a deal for Daniloff like the one announced yesterday, there'd have been a dozen cartoons in the papers this morning depicting him as a frightened bunny rabbit. Eight years ago, on his watch, two Russian spies had gotten fifty years in jail apiece, whereas Zakharov had just been allowed to leave the U.S. with a plea of nolo contendere --and been given permission to come back in five years! That was Reagan's toughness .   . . . your countrymen still have vivid memories of your time in the White House . . .   He could see two aides smirking, as if to say "Do they ever," and then realized that one of them wasn't even Reagan's but a guy who'd worked for him !   . . . repairing to a quiet place to receive the latest word on the hostages you did so much to free, or studying in your hideaway office for the meeting at Camp David . . .   It was as if the class football hero had been ordered to pay tribute to the class grind.   And there's only one thing left to say. From the fortieth president to the thirty-ninth, happy birthday. And, Mr. President, if I could give you one word of advice: Life begins at seventy!   As everyone laughed--including Fritz, with god-awful gusto--the former president realized that this was the line that would play on the evening news. There you go again, you son of a bitch. He had to trump him, or at least come up with something sufficiently gracious to guarantee a few words of his own on tonight's broadcasts. So at the top of his typewritten remarks, he quickly penciled in a new lead:   Having heard you speak, Mr. President, I finally, for the first time, understand why you won and I lost.   It was the sort of lie he'd once promised never to tell the American people. The truth was he'd come to understand this long ago.    ###     Excerpted from Finale: A Novel of the Reagan Years by Thomas Mallon All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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