OPINION:
LANDFALL
By Thomas Mallon
Penguin Random House, $28.95, 496 pages
Thomas Mallon’s 10th novel, “Landfall,” is a detailed account of George W. Bush’s second term as president. It credibly imagines the conversations, daily happenings, and motivations of the president and his associates, advisers and family, while recounting events in Iraq and most vividly, the effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans.
This will surely fascinate anyone with an interest in politics or current affairs. It does not, however, provide an entirely enjoyable reading experience.
Mr. Mallon uses the techniques of historical fiction: Extensive research; a long and varied cast of characters; and descriptions of their daily lives and social interactions. If he were writing of — let us say — the White House of Theodore Roosevelt or the court of Queen Victoria, these techniques would usefully portray the central figures and events of their era.
Readers would know, or believe, that the author had consulted the plentiful surviving records, and would trust that what is imagined or proposed as motivation or action would be an interpretation based on these sources. Most crucially they would accept that any writer dealing with such figures — a historian, a biographer, a novelist — works under the constraint that all the parties are dead, and thus, to use Donald Rumsfeld’s term, there are bound to be “known unknowns.”
Of course, many writers, notably journalists, write about living presidents and rulers. Their profession demands factual accuracy, though it doesn’t prevent conjecture or interpretation. They also have constraints: some legal, others their own or their publisher’s political leanings. Ideally, readers take these into account when they consider the veracity or perspective of what they are reading.
Documentary fiction such as “Landfall” lies somewhere between these two. Its imagined thoughts and conversations lie well outside journalistic best practices, while its guesses and insights lack the justification that the grim reaper has made off with the vital personnel who could verify or deny them.
Our responses to histories of people of past times and to accounts of those who are living differ. In the first case we give the author the benefit of any doubt (because we accept that best guesses are inevitable); in the second case we hold a stricter standard (because we believe that reports can be authenticated since the principle actors are still on the earthly stage).
“Landfall” elicits the first response — that given to historical writing — for a report of recent events. This makes it an edgy read. There’s a bit of a thrill there, stoked by Thomas Mallon’s sharp, often witty, writing and his confident skeptical voice. Most readers will find descriptions that will startle and delight. Here’s Barbara Bush observing Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton:
“Bar noticed a genuine girlish gush, however momentary beneath the test-market Mazak of Condi’s conversation. A part of the younger woman wanted her real personality to break through; she was merely afraid of it — as opposed to Hillary, several tables to their left, who despised her own real self and could scarcely remember what it looked like, having sent so many different versions of it out on so many different combat missions before having to welcome it home, always more shot up and disfigured than when it left.”
Mrs. Clinton is not a significant player in this book, but many who are come off just as badly: John Edwards, Dick Cheney, even Barbara Bush, at times such a Tiger Mom that one actually feels a bit sorry for George W.
The appeal of such observations and characterizations is that of gossip. At a certain level, way below pride, we like some Peeping Tom insights, though reflection might question the origin of their appeal. This, too, helps make “Landfall” an uncomfortable book.
The story of the fictional Ross Weatherall and Allison O’Connor twines through that of the White House and helps hold the vast mass of material together. As teens they met and fell in love at a 1970s Bush Bash in Lubbock, Texas. Long separated, they meet and re-ignite their affair when she is an Army lawyer with long experience working in Iraq. He is a college professor working for the NEAH — (Mr. Mallon’s version of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities) — a job that takes him to New Orleans just in time to experience Hurricane Katrina and its effects. Their reactions to the crises that they are living through are an artfully crafted commentary on their times.
The reader’s sympathy with Ross and Allie survives to the end of the 469-page “Landfall.” This cannot be said for the story of President Bush and his court, most prominently Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice. What a tiresome lot they seem. Angling for influence seems to be their main preoccupation. This, too, is an uncomfortable thought. Still, “Landfall” offers a lot to think about and quite a bit of fun, too.
• Claire Hopley is a writer and editor in Amherst, Mass.
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