Reading for the GOP event.
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| The Thread's Must-Read |
3 books to read during the Republican Convention
Last week I recommended two nonfiction books about politics and a fun novel with a lead character modeled on former first lady Laura Bush.
This week, I’m back with two more novels and a terrific political biography you shouldn’t miss.
No list of political fiction is complete without Ward Just. Now, in his 80s, and a former journalist, he is the master of turning a mirror on America. He has a rich backlist, but for our purposes today I’m recommending “Echo House.”
The novel begins in the 1930s as Senator Adolph Behl, powerful and privileged, awaits a call expecting to hear he’s been chosen as the vice-presidential candidate. The nod goes to someone else and the loss will set off political ripples through Washington and down through the generations of the Behl family. Publisher’s Weekly calls it a political novel “par excellence.”
My second must-read is one that the bookstore Politics & Prose in Washington. recommends when some tourist wanders in and asks about political fiction.
Titled, “I, Claudius,” it’s the fictionalized autobiography of Roman Emperor Tiberius Claudius. Aauthor Robert Graves has packed it with enough political intrigue that it could be the story of contemporary D.C. right now!
And last, a political biography. So many to choose from! But I’m urging you to read David Blight’s biography of Frederick Douglass, titled “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.”
Blight draws us into the fatalism of the approaching Civil War and Douglass’ dawning belief that war was the only way to vanquish slavery.
He tells us of Douglass’ life during Reconstruction and how his life was influenced by three white men and a European woman.
Adam Gopnik writes of Douglass: “In the end, Douglass fascinates us because he embodies all of the contradictions of the Black experience in America.” Those are contradictions we’re still wrestling with today.
— Kerri Miller |
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