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2.48 AVERAGE
2.48 AVERAGE
As someone with a perverse interest in Nixoniana, I was expecting that Ann Beattie's Mrs. Nixon might do for Pat what Robert Coover did for (to?) RN in The Public Burning: take the historical figure as we have come to know him/her, smash through all those received narratives with the writerly sledgehammer, and rebuild him/her as a complex, sympathetic, pathetic, supremely weird character.
Mrs. Nixon is not that book.
Instead, it's a captivating collection of anecdotes, quips, imagined conversations, and reflections on the work and the art of storytelling. Pat Nixon, as she was in her husband's life and memoirs, and in the public imagination, still lingers on the periphery, coming into focus briefly before retreating again. The Mrs. Nixon that Beattie reveals and constructs isn't a surprise. What is surprising is the way that Beattie weaves these stories between her thoughts on how stories are told versus how they're written, on how writers might fill in silences and gaps and create new ones. For me, as one who finds herself inexplicably drawn to the mythology and melodrama of the Nixon years, Mrs. Nixon is enjoyable; as one who writes (or tries to), it's exciting and insightful.
Mrs. Nixon is not that book.
Instead, it's a captivating collection of anecdotes, quips, imagined conversations, and reflections on the work and the art of storytelling. Pat Nixon, as she was in her husband's life and memoirs, and in the public imagination, still lingers on the periphery, coming into focus briefly before retreating again. The Mrs. Nixon that Beattie reveals and constructs isn't a surprise. What is surprising is the way that Beattie weaves these stories between her thoughts on how stories are told versus how they're written, on how writers might fill in silences and gaps and create new ones. For me, as one who finds herself inexplicably drawn to the mythology and melodrama of the Nixon years, Mrs. Nixon is enjoyable; as one who writes (or tries to), it's exciting and insightful.
I couldn't get into this at all. The novelist's perspective and analysis of other writers within the first few pages of the book did not work for me. Someone used the word pedantic, which fits. But i didn't really give it a chance...didn't even pass 25 pages.
Got a little bored but mrs Nixon sounds like a repressed, strong smart woman
Because so much of Pat Nixon's life is opaque (no memoir, no confessional appearance on Oprah), Beattie fills in the gaps with short vignettes from a variety of character perspectives and ranging from the banal (Nixon's doctor insisting he gain weight by drinking four milkshakes a day) to following absurdities to their logical conclusions (Elvis' impromptu visit to the White House). As you would expect from Beattie's short stories, this is less about the Nixons than what we can hope to know and how much of ourselves a fiction writer or biographer intrudes on the story.
This book is marketed as a novel, yet the author uses a pedantic approach-- as though teaching creative writing -- via the imagined life of Pat Nixon, wife of our disgraced President. The author's writing style is quite disconcerting because it reads like a text book. Must she explain the most obvious analogies, i.e., crystal bowl and crystal ball?The many comparisons of the Nixons and/or events in their lives to literary works, such as Chekhov, seems to be a purely academic effort with little merit.
If you want to learn about Mrs. Nixon, you would be far more gratified with PAT NIXON: AN UNTOLD STORY written by her daughter Julie Nixon Eisenhower, biased as it may be. Julie's book is an often quoted resource for this novel. Having read a biography of Mrs. Nixon and her daughter's book about her, I find this novel to be a disappointing exercise. However, if you are looking for a book that might provide some lessons in the writing process, this could be the book for you.
If you want to learn about Mrs. Nixon, you would be far more gratified with PAT NIXON: AN UNTOLD STORY written by her daughter Julie Nixon Eisenhower, biased as it may be. Julie's book is an often quoted resource for this novel. Having read a biography of Mrs. Nixon and her daughter's book about her, I find this novel to be a disappointing exercise. However, if you are looking for a book that might provide some lessons in the writing process, this could be the book for you.
This book was a little over the place, which I can empathize with as someone who is all over the place. However, the moments and the writing that resonated with me were overshadowed by the moments that felt completely derailed into irrelevant tangents about fiction writing pedagogy—though it was interesting to understand how the writer explains the process, I signed up for a hybrid fictional/nonfictional memoir of the First Lady of one of the most enigmatic presidents and felt that half the book avoided that and failed to reach its potential. That’s the last time I’ll buy a used, former-library book with about 6 “discarded” stamps covering its every surface
This book is marketed as a novel, yet the author uses a pedantic approach-- as though teaching creative writing -- via the imagined life of Pat Nixon, wife of our disgraced President. The author's writing style is quite disconcerting because it reads like a text book. Must she explain the most obvious analogies, i.e., crystal bowl and crystal ball?The many comparisons of the Nixons and/or events in their lives to literary works, such as Chekhov, seems to be a purely academic effort with little merit.
If you want to learn about Mrs. Nixon, you would be far more gratified with PAT NIXON: AN UNTOLD STORY written by her daughter Julie Nixon Eisenhower, biased as it may be. Julie's book is an often quoted resource for this novel. Having read a biography of Mrs. Nixon and her daughter's book about her, I find this novel to be a disappointing exercise. However, if you are looking for a book that might provide some lessons in the writing process, this could be the book for you.
If you want to learn about Mrs. Nixon, you would be far more gratified with PAT NIXON: AN UNTOLD STORY written by her daughter Julie Nixon Eisenhower, biased as it may be. Julie's book is an often quoted resource for this novel. Having read a biography of Mrs. Nixon and her daughter's book about her, I find this novel to be a disappointing exercise. However, if you are looking for a book that might provide some lessons in the writing process, this could be the book for you.
This was my choice for our book club, and that's probably why I didn't hate it like my fellow book club members lol. It wasn't quite what I was expecting, in that I assumed it would be a fictionalized account of the life of Pat Nixon, but instead focused on what could potentially have been Pat's story in the hands of different writers. A good choice for writers who are interested in the actual nuts and bolts of telling someone's life story.