The Thread: Three books to read during the GOP convention
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Last week I recommended two non-fiction books about politics and a fun novel with a lead character modeled after 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, who died late last year. A former journalist, Just was the master of turning a mirror on America. He has a rich backlist, but I’m highlighting “Echo House.”
The novel begins in the 1930s as the powerful and privileged Senator Adolph Behl 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.
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Publisher’s Weekly calls it a political novel “par excellence.”
My second must-read is one that the bookstore Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C. recommends.
Titled, “I, Claudius,” it’s the fictionalized autobiography of Roman Emperor Tiberius Claudius. Author Robert Graves has packed it with enough political intrigue that it could be the story of contemporary D.C. right now!
Finally, let’s turn to a political biography. There are 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 also tells us of Douglass’ life during Reconstruction and how his life was influenced by three white men and a European woman.
The New Yorker’s 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.
My must-reads are:
“Echo House” by Ward Just;
“I,Claudius” by Robert Graves;
Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.