Washington Books

Eddie Fung's curiosity, sense of adventure, and generous spirit in helping others is inspiring!

He never let his small stature get in the way of anything he was determined to do, whether it was to enlist in the army, help the men on the ranches where he worked at during his teens, or (secretly) help get food and medicine for his fellow POW's during WWII.

I admire his way of sharing his adventurous life, which was often humorous: he didn't hesitate to recount the times he got in trouble or made himself look not-so-smart when he could have asked for help. I like his forthright manner! As he put it to his second wife: "What you see is what you get."

Fung's spirit shines throughout the book; it serves as reminder to me of the sacrifices made by servicemen such as himself, as well as my father, and members of their generation during WWII. Moreover, he describes how he helped his fellow POW's to survive in the most unimaginable circumstances by using his past experiences, however minor they may have seemed. Being frugal, helping his mom with household chores like making preparations for dinner, and working on the ranch provided useful skills he could share with the other prisoners.

His many adventures are nicely complemented with loving family background/memories of parents and siblings, and life, post-POW. A really enjoyable read!

Don't miss out!

"Another Little Big Man" might have been the immodest title of this too modest gentleman's autobiography. That memorable movie from 1970 told the life story of a diminutive guy who lived many different lives within the span of one and that could also describe Eddie Fung. Short on stature, big on life, that's Eddie. Born in San Francisco's Chinatown, he dropped out of high school and went to Texas at age 16 to become a cowboy just because he wanted to. There he discovered a now nearly vanished breed of everyday honest men and a challenging way of life that for him epitomized the American dream of freedom of spirit paid for by hard work. By 1940 as war raged in China and simmered in Europe he too joined the Texas National Guard just as many of the other ranch hands were doing. That one simple act put Eddie onto a path that took him through three and a half very tough years as the only Chinese American prisoner of war after his unit's capture by the Japanese Army early in 1942. You won't want to put it down once you begin Eddie's book but the beauty of it is that you can pick it up and open it nearly at random and be rewarded with simple truths as experienced by a complex man. For this we have Eddie's wife Dr. Judith Yung to thank for an excellent job of editing a number of multi-hour interview sessions. Judy is one of this nation's most well known and respected scholar/authors of the modern Chinese American experience. Be sure to read the Preface to learn how they met and married when Judy needed a WW II vet interview for a project she had begun. This memorable book has one little shortcoming, so to speak, that must be mentioned .... it comes to an end. This reader wanted Eddie's adventures to continue indefinitely. We do learn of his post war life including family and career, his eventual involvement with the Lost Battalion Association and its annual reunions, etc. so it is a well rounded effort. My wish came true recently when I discovered that YouTube offers a six part look at one of this special couple's book talks. Thank you sharing your life Eddie.

I met Eddie Fung in person last week and heard him discuss the book and his life. What a journey! He is a 10 an so is his book. There are many greatest generation stories that will never be told (my Dad's for example) so take advantage of reading this amazing story of survival from a good story teller.

Also, it is a reminder that many American minorities were in WWII who were staunch patriots, sacrificed much, and should not be overlooked.

this is a very touching story- somewhat like angela's ashes re experiences of a poor background. school dropout, becoming a cowboy then a searing 4 years as a pow -finally graduating from stanford university and moving on

Excellent collection of essays- some repetitive, all comprehensive, accompanied by extremely good illustrations and photographs.

Often scholarly volumes have excellent content but are poorly produced and edited while musem volumes are often well produced and edited but lack serious and contemporary scholarly material--they become catalogues of artifacts without real contextualizing material.

Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People manages to overcome both of these problems. As a scholarly volume it has excellent content (much of which has not been previously available to non-Japanese speakers) and is well-produced and beautifully laid out.

Aside from some small quibbles I have with some other articles seeming truncated for space concerns and others for not presenting enough information (notably the articles dealing with Ainu language/linguistics), I find little to find fault with. Even my concerns about some aspects of the volume are only a request for more, not a complaint with what is in the volume.

Overall this volume does a wonderful job of making contemporary Ainu research accessible to the lay reader while also presenting enough scholarly material to make it worth-while reading for those with a deeper interest in the Ainu. Even though the volume does not deal directly with the area of my research, the amount of knowledge it conveys has foced me to rethink aspects of my own work.

Despite the fact that I have lived in Japan for more than fifteen years, my visit to the Smithsonian's fabulous "Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People" exhibit last year provided my first meaningful look at this long overlooked or misunderstood part of East Asian cultural heritage. I ordered a softcover copy of the (at the time yet to be released) book right away and have since poured through it time and again. Written largely by anthropologists, as a layman I feared that it might well be too scientific to appreciate; happily such is not the case. The book is beautifully written, edited, and illustrated. Anyone with an interest in Japan's northern culture and/or the animist nature of the nation as a whole will find this book profoundly enlightening. I regret that a hardcover edition was not available sooner.

In addition to what the other readers have written I would also add that this book is truly a "must-have" for anyone having an interest either in the Ainu specifically, or native peoples such as the Aleuts, the Inuits, the Polynesians, the Moari, etc. This, in part, because anyone interested in the Ainu will be hard-pressed to find a great deal of books in print regarding this topic, in any case in English. Photographs or Ainu artifacts are perfect and highly details, and there are a great deal of reproductions of "Ainu-e", or paintings done by the Japanese when they were slowly but surely in the process of taking over what is today Hokkaido. These are invaluable because they are rich in detail and depict a way of life that no longer exists, much in the same way that Edward Curtis' photographs of the Native Indians in the US are. I would personally recommend the hard-cover version though more pricy is a much better book to own in one's collection.

For the afficionado of the political genre, there is no better book than this. Barry's access was not equally granted by all the players, but he was sufficiently "in the room" and privy to frank discussion that he places the reader in the Congress during the end of a Speaker's tenure. This episode really marks the rise of Newt Gingrich, the end of Democrat control of the U.S. House, and profound changes in America. The book doesn't explain how it all came about. It does, however, live up to its title by showing how ambition and power collide. In this instance, ambition won. That Gingrich eventually suffered an ignominous political end is one of the great ironies of recent American politics.

This book is incredible in depth of research, interviews with key players in the House of Representatives, a balanced approached, and analysis. It reveals more of the inner workings of the House of Representatives than any other single source. A must read for anyone who wants to understand how the House works, and at the same time how Speaker Jim Wright lost the speakership.

An amazing read of the rise of Newt Gingrich and the fall of Speaker Wright. If you want a behind the scenes look at leadership and power in the US House - you must read this book. It basically follows how Newt dogged Speaker Wright and pushed him out the door with questionable tactics. Ironic that as Speaker himself, Newt had a lot of trouble with a book deal. Cannot recommend more highly.

Barry, who wrote for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications, was allowed unbelievable access to former Speaker of the House Jim Wright's private meetings, and also got cooperation from then-back bencher Gingrich and others of Wright's enemies. The result is an absolutely brilliant study of how power works in Washington, inside the Congress, between the Congress and the White House, the media. Well-written and provocative, this book will give you an understanding of Washington like nothing else I have ever read. Ever since it came out (in 1989), I have been waiting for Edmund Morris's Reagan biography to get the other side of the story. If only Morris had done what Barry did. But Morris failed. Barry didn't.

This book gives an insight into the private lives of the first families. We learn about their extended families, hobbies, illnesses, preparations for leaving the White House when their terms are completed, etc. The pictures are what really makes this book great. We see Lyndon Johnson in bed with his wife watching tv and we see the older George Bush in bed too (can you imagine Nixon or Clinton letting down his guard like this?). We see Gerald Ford in his bathrobe. If you always wanted to see such a sight, there is a photo of Eleanor Roosevelt in a bathing suit and a rare photo of Franklin in shorts with his polio ravaged legs exposed to the camera. We see painful personal moments such as the famous photo of Nixon hugging his daughter Julie when he made the decision to resign. In short this is, at times, a very rare personal and intimate glimpse into the lives of the first families. I enjoyed it and recommend it highly.

I have been fortunate enough to read Mr. Anthony's brilliant "First Ladies" mini-opuses, and highly looked forward to this epic on the lives of our First Families. I sat for three hours stright with an almost constant smile on my face as I ran through the pages. What an amazing acheivement Mr. Anthony has pulled together! I can only imagine the painstaking research needed to find out the tidbits sprinkled throughout. There is so much information in this novel that it almost boggles the mind at times and is a bit overwhelming. I wondered if everything was sinking in, when I saw Mr. Anthony speak at the Richard Nixon library on CSPAN one night recounting the tales found here. Every story he told was instantly recalled and sentences finished before explaining. The sheer knowledge that one can gain from reading this novel is tremendous. (Where else can you find a list of President's favorite movies? By Reagan selecting Rambo, it does nothing but prove what a complete and utter moron we had occupying the White House under his reign).....Point proven further....When listing President's favorite reading options, Mr Anthony lays out beautiful examples of this. President Clinton enjoys biographies of his predecessors, Eisenhower military biographies and TR, anything he could get his hands on. Reagan? Newspaper comics.....I shall leave my review at that.

This is a fascinating book. It is a wonderful compendium of trivia, probably not available in any other volume. It contains a wonderful assortment of pictures of First Families, some of which have never before been published. The book is well organized into chapters detailing various aspects of the Presidential families' lives and activities. for me, one of its prime attractions is that it does not include the politics or issues of the President's era.
At times, it is a little confusing, because the author skips from one family to another rather abruptly, so it requires a little getting used to in order to follow the narrative.
I would strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in the social and "human" aspects of the White House families.

I purchased this book yesterday and I can't put it down. It is filled with great pictures and stories of the forty-one famlies who lived in the White House. This is a great source of presidential trivia and provides a human element to the most famous family in America. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in American history and the lives of the presidents.

U.S. history, the government, and personae of American Presidents is a fascinating subject. While many scholarly work in the market have done in-depth investigation to profile American presidents, this title by David C Whitney and Robin Vaughn Whitney in its 9th edition from Reader's Digest is classically written and readily accessible to the general audience. Its objectivity and candor serves well as a gentle and educational introduction, an abridged version, on the development of American Presidents in relation to the unfolding drama of U.S. history.

The perennial best-seller, an enjoyable reading, excels in its elegance and clarity in comparison to many (auto)biographies of modern day C(orporate)EO/leadership titles.

We have been truly blessed with good men in the White House. Through the brilliant Constitution our founding fathers set up for our republic we emerged a country for all nations to envy. Through checks and balances we have created a system that works; it is at times not perfect, but there is none better.

Like any history book, "American Presidents" should not be used alone. It can not fulfill the task of evaluating the office of each of these men on its own. The author covers in detail each President's life growing up, offices held, as the executive and his achievements after the Oval Office. The vice president's, the cabinet, and historical sites are found at the end of the book. Photos are displaced throughout. One of the better books covering the Presidents.

I became increasingly interested in our Presidents, so I decide to research each one further, going as far as rating them. This is nothing new; there have been many such ratings done by scholars and intellectuals over the years. Of course I am neither. But I do find the ratings systems tend to focus on single merits and not the whole presidency. I have decided to do my own rating through these recourses:

"The American Presidents"-----Whitney
"A Patriot's History of the U.S."-----Schweikart and Allen
"The Oxford Companion to U.S. History"-----Boyer
"The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History"-----Woods
"Character"-----Wallace
"A Republic Not An Empire"-----Buchanan
and other misc. books

There is no way to fully list all of the positives and negatives of each Presidency. I have compiled a list of just a few of the important issues, then rated each according to the overall effect on the nation and the world. I admit bias cannot be removed totally. There will be some who will completely disagree with my system. You will find that I have lowered some who have been praised as great leaders and raised others that have been overlooked.

It can be hard to compare a Washington to a Bush, because these men lived at different times. The state of affairs and who they followed will have a major impact. I added W. Bush with reservation. His rating, along with the others are subject to change over time. In some cases I have added the same issue or attribute in both the pro and con column. Enjoy, take your time and feel free to comment:

After I copied and pasted I realized I could not fit the pros and cons on Amazon, so I deleted them. If any of you wish to have them you can write to me.


Rating President Held office Party
1 George Washington 1st 1789-97 Federalist

2 Thomas Jefferson 3rd 1801-09 Democrat-Republican(new)

3 Abraham Lincoln 16th 1861-65 Republican (first)

4 Calvin Coolidge 13th 1923-29 Republican

5 James Monroe 5th 1818-25 Democrat-Republican

6 Ronald Reagan 40th 1981-89 Republican

7 Grover Cleveland 22nd 1885-89 Democrat
24th 1893-97

8 James Madison 4th 1809-17 Democrat-Republican

9 John Adams 2nd 1797-1801 Federalist

10 Warren Harding 29th 1921-23 Republican

11 William McKinley 25th 1897-1901 Republican

12 Rutherford Hays 19th 1877-81 Republican

13 George W. Bush 43rd 2001- Republican

14 Dwight Eisenhower 34th 1953-61 Republican

15 Andrew Jackson 7th 1829-37 Democrat (first)

16 George H.W. Bush 41st 1989-93 Republican

17 Chester Arthur 21st 1881-85 Republican

18 Andrew Johnson 17th 1865-69 Unionist (only)

19 Franklin Pierce 14th 1853-57 Democrat

20 Gerald Ford 38th 1974-77 Republican

21 Richard Nixon 37th 1969-74 Republican

22 James Polk 11th 1845-49 Democrat

23 Martin Van Buren 8th 1837-41 Democrat (father of)

24 Harry Truman 33rd 1945-53 Democrat

25 John Kennedy 35th 1961-63 Democrat

26 Theodore Roosevelt 26th 1901-09 Republican

27 James Garfield 20th 1881 Republican

28 John Tyler 10th 1841-45 Whig

29 Benjamin Harrison 23rd 1889-93 Republican

30 John Quincy Adams 6th 1825-29 Coalition (mix)

31 James Buchanan 15th 1857-61 Democrat

32 Franklin Roosevelt 32nd 1933-45 Democrat

33 Herbert Hoover 31st 1929-33 Republican

34 Jimmy Carter 39th 1977-81 Democrat

35 Woodrow Wilson 28th 1913-21 Democrat

36 Lyndon Johnson 36th 1963-69 Democrat

37 Zachary Taylor 12th 1849-50 Whig

38 William Clinton 42nd 1993-2001 Democrat

39 William Harrison 9th 1841 whig (first)

40 Ulysses Grant 18th 1869-77 Republican

41 William Taft 27th 1909-13 Republican

42 Millard Fillmore 13th 1850-53 Whig (last)

This is an excellent book. It is great for people beginning to learn about American politics. It's a great source for quick handy reminders. It's a great gift. ( I bought seven copies for that reason). This would be a great book for teachers to have their high school students study.
While it is not possible to have one book completely cover all the Presidents, this single volumn outlines many important events.
There is an index in the back for quick searches.
Political views?
I have heard people claim this book is written with a Republican slant, and other claim it's written with a Democratic slant!
Using the above paragraph, one would have to think it was pretty fairly written.
I have went back to this book more often, during the election season, to brief my memory.

As a single volumn book; I repeat, this is an excellent book.

THIS IS A WONDERFUL OVERVIEW OF THE AMERICAN PRESIDENTS, AND QUITE ACCURATE. I HAVE READ BIOGRAPHIES OF MOST PRESIDENTS, VISITED MOST PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARIES, AND THOUGHT DAVID WHITNEY DID A GREAT JOB ON THIS SERIES.

I read this book in DC Jail in chapters my mother xeroxed and sent. I remembered it when she mentioned it at DC's National Shrine, where we were having breakfast. Now I am thinking of giving it to my 70-year-old, profoundly yet peacefully religious friend Bill MacKaye. In this book, Gotfryd rescues the humanity he saw brutalized and destroyed. I've read several Holocaust books and the horror is unspeakable, and it is in this book too, but Gotfryd recovers the crucified grace. It's a great gift to humanity and a life-changing read.

This is a great book. Its simple, precise style and its focus on detail of everyday life convey the horrors, which are mostly left out of the narrative but which hover above and beyond it, so that the effect is as unsettling as anything one is bound to read on the H. This book should be reissued so that it can reach many more readers.

Anton the Dove Fancier is a collection of autobiographical short stories about a teenage Jewish boy in Poland during World War II. The stories are so well linked together that the book reads like a novel. In it we discover the Nazi occupation and the death camps through the eyes of an adolescent, which gives this book a different slant compared to much Holocaust literature.

The author, Bernard Gotfryd, shows himself to be a keen observer of people, as well as of the small, humble details of everyday life. He has the gift of being able to illuminate those details, so that they take on a transcendant beauty. We see a world--one which others might find dull and ordinary--through the consciousness of a mind which is itself radiant. Thus, the stories do not only address the horrors of the nazi occupation and the camps; those horrors are set against a backdrop of everyday life and people, the memories of which are interspersed throughout the book. This gives it a chiaroscuro quality which I find to be rare in literature, and through the play of light and shadow the author creates an ambiguous, complex world. This ambiguity is another way in which the book differs from much Holocaust literature. Many of the characters themselves are ambiguous, and after reading about them we find ourselves asking, "Was he good, or bad?" The answer is yes.....

This book indirectly leads the reader to ponder the issues of suffering and healing. Despite the optimistic teachings of the growth psychology movement, there are wounds which are too traumatic to fully heal. Growth psychology would have us believe that without integration, and psychological "functionality," we cannot realize our full potential. It posits a future goal that we can attain through work on ourselves. However, Gotfryd shows us, through the power of his words, that we are most fully human when we can really open our eyes and see the world in its complexity and irrationality, as well as its simplicity and beauty, right now.

Why is Anton The Dove Fancier out of print? It is an extraordinary collection of true stories that ought not be buried away. This book illustrates that human behavior is, simultaneously, both the most fascinating and disturbing form of contemplation. Anton The Dove Fancier is well worth any effort it takes to track down. Buried treasure indeed - it is profound, intensely moving, raw in its simplicity. Humanity and its many layers are exposed without judgement. Quite a trick, and something afforded only to the calm, quiet truth tellers. Such as Bernard Gotfryd. Find this priceless gem... and hold on to it. Tight.

I heard about this artist from a friend. I also visited Canada recently, altho not in the area where Emily Carr lived. She is revered in Canada but not nearly as well known in the United States. I personally love her paintings. To me they perfectly respresent the times she lived in and her not so easy life.

An incredible book fulfilling every Carr fans wishes. Truly a beautiful piece of literature and visuals. I was very impressed with the depth of knowledge the Author had of Ms. Carr and the extensive listing of pictures from private ownership and many Galleries. Contains a complete history of her life, travels, writing and of course her unwavering pursuit of success. An absolute must have for anyone who is a Carr fan. Thoroughly enjoyable.

If you are interested in expanding your knowledge of artists on this continent (North America), specifically the West Coast, I'd recommend this erudite volume on the work of Emily Carr. Emily Carr was a late-bloomer, but when she found her own she produced haunting canvases of her encounters with Northwest Coast Native Art, specifically totems. This was followed by strong formalized images of the coastal rainforest. Late in her life she painted expressive landscapes. I recently read that a joint exhibit of Emily Carr, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Frida Kahlo "Places of their Own" will be travelling to various venues in 200l/2002.

This is one of those books that is a must for any person interested in Pacific Northwest history, art, and culture. I first encountered Emily Carr at an amazing exhibit at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria. I have been a big fan ever since.

This is Susan Cheever at her eloquent, incisive, sweet-rhythmed best. She writes that her children are the center of her world. Lucky children. And lucky us to be the recipients of her loving, hilarious, honest report back to the outer reaches.

"Real me" is my favorite of all the chapters but all of them are fantastic!!! Cheever has shown us the funny side of parenting, this is not a "boring how-to-guide" but more sharing of cheever's experence, strenght and hope!!!! Moving, funny, witty and revealing!!!!

This book is warm, encouraging and very funny. She demonstates that having had a difficult childhood does not mean that one cannot be a terrific parent. I enjoyed the way she wrote aobut her children; so much respect, empathy and love.

This is not a "how-to" book or even a book of advice. It is more a memoir of parenting. If you are looking for parenting information, try one of Penelope Leach's or Terry Brazelton's excellent books.

"ON Christmas Eve we all go to church to watch the Christmas Pageant, a thrilling performance involving some real baby sheep and a live donkey who once bucked off the Virgin Mary in a fit of holy exaltation." I was unprepared when I picked up this book for how funny it would be. I also hadn't expected it to be so shrewd in its cultural appraisal. But it is--it's funny and startling, beautifully written. And so smart on the subject of raising children. I really loved it.

I orginally bought this book in 1988 and thought it a beautifully written book on not only bird watching but of a Washington that no longer exists due to modern highways and bustle. I recently purchased this book for a friend who is a bird watcher and has lived in DC. I hope he will like it as much as I do. Jenny Brake

This is one of those rare books that lifts you out of your chair and brings you along on a soaring journey to the natural world beyond the government office windows. It is written as a daily journal of nature explorations in and around Washington, D.C. and makes a perfect companion for any watcher of spring. The author was a keen observer of natural life when he wrote the book in 1945, and the watchful naturalist today will find much to celebrate in the wildlife that is still here today, and also much to mourn that has been lost in the intervening decades. No more do we have rafts of mergansers resting in the Tidal Basin, but Dyke Marsh is still the place to see waterthrushes, and herons still stop by the ponds on the Mall. Halle's eloquent musings on the question of "What is important?" are still relevant today, as the press and government continue to occupy themselves with matters of man-made events and ignore the real news happening all around us--the news of the actual world going about its business completely unconcerned with scandal or finance. Swans still fly south over government office buildings, and anyone who notices and rejoices in such happenings will find a true friend in this marvelous book.

This a book from another time which is still relevant to our day and age. The writer takes time from a boring desk job in wartime Washington to provide timeless observations about nature along the Potomac river as he experiences it in early morning bicycle rides. He indirectly puts man in his place and foretells many of the things environmentalists have rediscovered in the last 20 years. Highly recommended in general, but especially if you have any familiarity with the area around Washington, DC.

Louis Halle reveals his soul in this evocative love letter to the stirrings of spring. Though set along Rock Creek and the Potomac River in and around Washington, this work will transport you away from this world into another time and place in which the sheer joy of seeing nature burst into color will overwhelm you. Close your eyes and have someone read this book to you and you will be able to smell the tidal waters and hear the wind in the marsh grass. Halle's book is pure pleasure.

In the last weeks of the Reagan administration, clueless ex-congressman Charles Dingleman, dumped by his district's voters and by two ex-wives, is now floundering in a private sector law firm. A ray of hope arrives in the form of a possible appointment to the prospective Dukakis White House. But over lunch, Dingleman offends an over-reactive young associate, Judith Grust--first by leering at an underdressed woman, then unaccountably trying to recover via a piece of movie repartee that once worked out great between Broderick Crawford and Virginia Mayo. (If I were a dog and you were a steak, I wouldn't care, Dingleman remembers the line--"or something to that effect.") Dingleman's bungled rendition is actually even worse than that (I worry that if I were a mangy dog and you were roast beef. . .). Worse still is how Judith's ear memorializes it ("Something about raw meat").

She complains to an inept founding partner, whose reflex for putting out the fire is to lie to her that Dingleham knows he has a disorder and is getting treatment for it. Grust, though, is still haunted by the violation she's been through, and convinces herself that in the national interest she must forward the information to network news anchor Reynolds Mund. (The dull welfare reformer she's begun dating, while gazing at Judith's bare upper leg, agrees to make the actual phone call.) Dingleman is soon a jobless pariah, and enlists the blundering, high-priced publicity firm Big Tooth to restore his good name.

The locus of this firm brings into play a whole third-person world of losers and climbers, all fatally human, many of whom will eventually fail upward in what seems to be a sort of train-wreck historical dialectic. ("Put the lazy bastards to work is my thought," Dingleman eventually says about welfare reform, and the former liberal theorist he's talking to feels "a sort of primal agreement.") Everyone is basically in over his head; everyone but Dingleman bluffs having slightly more connections than he really does. Poor slobs are undone by their concealed masturbation fantasies--and in a different book we would feel that a brave, timely statement about forgiveness, hypocrisy and human nature might be made.

The book's only frustration is that Frank's comedy is so smart, one suspects this could have been just as funny and possibly more serious as well. The farce is all too believable, and the humanity Frank draws with his left hand is better than most of us could do with our right. But the book pulls up somewhat abruptly, in a world that bumbles forward without real breakthroughs or breakdowns.

Frank's voice is acid but somehow weirdly sympathetic. Each biographical sketch lingers on the perfect note of self-importance, each physical description contains the perfect repellant flaw. The Russian Expert Suzanne Smule "smiled a wonderful smile, and Hank understood her charm at once. She wore a dark green suit loose enough to hide her stocky body. She was also wearing a perfume he'd never smelled before, a mixture of lilac and olive oil, and he noticed a long scar along the base of her neck." A mediocre couple "had not had many serious conversations, although now and then they talked about having a child. Many of the people they saw at their offices had children, and sometimes, when they watched television, they would imagine how nice it would be to watch television with their child."

When Gorbachev visits Washington, the elderly lecher Alfred Schmalz tells Judith excitedly "that he'd seen the Russian outside the Soviet embassy and had never felt so hopeful about the future; he could imagine his grandson on a playground with little Russian children, jumping rope in a peaceful world."

In case the point has not been driven home, most, if not all, the characters are betting on plum jobs or profitable connections in the wrong candidate's administration.

Jeffrey Frank is a brilliant novelist specializing in acid portraits of a totally loveless world, one in which people bump into each other but never connect--either emotionally or sexually. In a Frank novel one always feels that one is observing the world through the wrong end of a telescope; the characters are infinitely distant from us, and from the narrator. We identify with these characters only at our own risk.

Frank has for some reason disowned his own early novel, *The Creep*, which I recall (very well) reading in high school, circa 1968. This novel is in the same mold; the only difference is in the specificity of the portrayal of the Washington D.C. lobbyist/think tank/legal milieu. But the utter alienation of the male characters, and the frigid but caustically funny style through which they are depicted, remains unchanged.

If you enjoyed, or were obsessed by, *The Creep*, check out this novel; it's like meeeting a dysfunctional friend, 30+ years later, and finding out where he's been.

In this period of anxious anticipation of the 2004 presidential campaign and general election, we can learn a great deal from those political campaigns of the past and that includes the late '80s. Or maybe we can't. I'm not sure.

Since Jeffrey Frank's earlier novel, "The Columnist," was a big hit at our house, not to mention our whole neighborhood -- okay, maybe the entire Washington, D.C. area -- we are really looking forward to reading his new book.

We would have done so already, but we're waiting for it to arrive in shipment from Amazon.com.

We gave it four stars, only because we haven't actually read it yet. Who knows? After reading it, maybe five stars. We'll see.

I lived in Washington D.C. once upon a time, but that --- or the fact that I was once married to a washed up politico -- has absolutely nothing to do with why I LOVED this hilarious novel. Well, perhaps a tiny bit. But personal experience of the various and dreadful games in the Nation's Capital, or even your basic lobbying law firm, isn't necessary in order to enjoy this wicked, wicked book. You'll scream with laughter. I did.