Charles McCarry’s Lucky Bastard never made it into paperback, and it’s yet to be reprinted by Overlook Press, the house that’s brought most of his earlier books back into print. The Random House first edition (from 1998) is an ugly-looking book: the wrap is an inch undersized, revealing the topmost of a series of Kennedy half-dollars tumbling down the front and back of the boards. (It’s like a hardcover version of those hideous peek-a-boo mass market covers.)
Loathsome appearance aside, the novel had the misfortune of being pegged in reviews as a satire of the Clinton journey to the White House, and one that appeared a full two years after Joe Klein’s Primary Colors -- a reductive assessment that no doubt played a part in the book now qualifying as forgotten.
Klein’s roman à clef is knowing and funny; McCarry’s novel is a brazen fantasia, but one grounded, nevertheless, in what feel like political realities that any sane American would wish to be able to dismiss as pure fantasy. Difficult as it may be, even now, not to view the story of James Fitzgerald Adams and his wife, Morgan -- chosen during their college years by a rogue KGB mastermind to be future residents of the White House -- through the prism of the Clintons, it’s worth the effort. The story is bigger than that. As narrated by their soulful Russian handler, it’s a beautiful piece of writing, and reading it may leave you giddy.
for all of Friday's Forgotten Books, see Patti Abbott's blog.
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6 comments:
As the Obama Administration takes over with a number of Clinton-era appointees, I can't help but think that the Clinton years will get a new retrospective somehow, you know, like "Those were the prosperity years" or something like that. This book might be a fun anti-thesis to it.
Sounds like a fun book. I read PRIMARY COLORS when the author was still known as Anonymous. LUCKY BASTARD sounds like a welcome companion piece of sorts.
Thanks, Joe. I read a book by him, but I can't remember what.
Patti, I'll bet it was THE TEARS OF AUTUMN, a fictional treatment of JFK's assassination that was a bestseller in 1974.
Best wishes. Joe
Wait, I'm confused. Are we talking about "Primary Colors" redux or "The Mongolian Candidate?"
More the latter, Gainesville Dave. Good call. McCarry dedicated the novel to Richard Condon -- author of THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE.
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