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Jack Gance: A Gritty Washington Political Thriller of Election Corruption, Power, and Moral Compromise
A young pollster named Jack Gance becomes a savvy Washington political insider and eventually a U.S. senator - but not without paying the usual dues, which turns out to be a dirty business. Gance wastes his love on married women, but ultimately learns who his true mistress is: "I had arrived an apprentice from Chicago, but Washington had taken care of that. It was a great city. . . . It gave and gave and gave and gave and expected nothing in return but loyalty."
- GenresFiction
279 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
2 people are currently reading
88 people want to read
About the author
Ward Just
36 books83 followersWard Just was a war correspondent, novelist, and short story author.
Ward Just graduated from Cranbrook School in 1953. He briefly attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He started his career as a print journalist for the Waukegan (Illinois) News-Sun. He was also a correspondent for Newsweek and The Washington Post from 1959 to 1969, after which he left journalism to write fiction.
His influences include Henry James and Ernest Hemingway. His novel An Unfinished Season was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005. His novel Echo House was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1997. He has twice been a finalist for the O. Henry Award: in 1985 for his short story "About Boston," and again in 1986 for his short story "The Costa Brava, 1959." His fiction is often concerned with the influence of national politics on Americans' personal lives. Much of it is set in Washington, D.C., and foreign countries. Another common theme is the alienation felt by Midwesterners in the East.
Ward Just graduated from Cranbrook School in 1953. He briefly attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He started his career as a print journalist for the Waukegan (Illinois) News-Sun. He was also a correspondent for Newsweek and The Washington Post from 1959 to 1969, after which he left journalism to write fiction.
His influences include Henry James and Ernest Hemingway. His novel An Unfinished Season was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005. His novel Echo House was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1997. He has twice been a finalist for the O. Henry Award: in 1985 for his short story "About Boston," and again in 1986 for his short story "The Costa Brava, 1959." His fiction is often concerned with the influence of national politics on Americans' personal lives. Much of it is set in Washington, D.C., and foreign countries. Another common theme is the alienation felt by Midwesterners in the East.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 7, 2022
This is my fifth Ward Just, and so far the most compulsively readable. It's "atmospheric", like the other political novels - which for Just simply means old and musty. It starts in the 1940s and ends in the 1980s, and the 80s have the same feel as the 40s. We follow Jack Gance from boyhood in Lincoln Park, Chicago, to the University of Chicago, where he majors in political science and is mentored by a professor (and father figure) who gets him a job with the Chicago Machine, doing polling for the Kennedy campaign in 1960. He has an affair with a married woman until her husband confronts him. His connections get him a job in Washington, working for the President's outer circle in the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House; it's not exactly clear what he does, aside from sit in meetings, just that he's always on call to do what the President wants. I wasn't even really clear on which president: Nixon probably, although it may have been Ford. When we arrive in the 80s Jack decides to run for the Senate from Illinois, and he just barely wins, after he's gotten an infusion of cash from a political fixer associated with the man he cuckolded back in the late 50s/early 60s.
I think its readability comes from it not being too politically detailed. Everything is slightly vague, as if we're peering through a window smeared with Vaseline. Also from the human interest: Jack has a strange, adversarial relationship with his father, who is wealthy but goes to prison for tax evasion. He has affairs but never marries. His mother allies herself with his father, over her children. As with Just's other novels there's the constant clink of ice cubes in glasses as people booze. And Jack (or more likely, Just ventriloquizing for him) has one foot in another world, the world of literature, unlike most political operatives: "I was living in my own Bildungsroman, each day learning more about how things worked in the city that worked" and "I was following Flaubert's advice: Live like a bourgeois in order to create like a god."
November 5, 2011
I agree Ward Just is a gifted writer. Newsweek ranks him just below Edith Wharton and Henry James in his social commentary.
“Jack Gance,” published in 1989, is the second of Just’s novels with significant portions of the story set in and around Chicago from the 1940s to the 1980s, what Just calls his “Illinois cycle.” However, instead of focusing on journalism as in “A Family Trust,” this story focuses on Chicago’s Machine Politics peppered with minor Mafia influences in Jack Gance’s political world. Once Kennedy is elected president, Gance goes to Washington, D.C., and the story shifts to his experiences there, eventually in the Nixon White House.
Finally tiring of his behind-the-scenes role, Gance runs for public office himself.
My favorite portions of the story were those set in Chicago and its suburbs. I found Gance’s character development thorough, and I would have rated the book higher had it dealt more with journalism and less with politics, because I would have been more interested in the story from a reporter’s point of view. Of course, that isn’t Just’s fault, but it did influence my rating.
“Jack Gance,” published in 1989, is the second of Just’s novels with significant portions of the story set in and around Chicago from the 1940s to the 1980s, what Just calls his “Illinois cycle.” However, instead of focusing on journalism as in “A Family Trust,” this story focuses on Chicago’s Machine Politics peppered with minor Mafia influences in Jack Gance’s political world. Once Kennedy is elected president, Gance goes to Washington, D.C., and the story shifts to his experiences there, eventually in the Nixon White House.
Finally tiring of his behind-the-scenes role, Gance runs for public office himself.
My favorite portions of the story were those set in Chicago and its suburbs. I found Gance’s character development thorough, and I would have rated the book higher had it dealt more with journalism and less with politics, because I would have been more interested in the story from a reporter’s point of view. Of course, that isn’t Just’s fault, but it did influence my rating.
July 17, 2012
Listed as one of the Washington Post's "The Fix" best fictional works on Washington DC, Ward Just's Jack Gance certainly has its moments. The book's eponymous protagonist is first seen as a young man vacationing on the lakes near Chicago. Rising through the ranks of Chicago politics, he eventually goes to Washington, DC.
Jack Gance has several very good scenes on politics, but they seem too few compared with more ponderous ones about his personal life. Ironically, the most interesting observations on politics actually occur on the context of Chicago and city politics rather than Washington.
Jack Gance has several very good scenes on politics, but they seem too few compared with more ponderous ones about his personal life. Ironically, the most interesting observations on politics actually occur on the context of Chicago and city politics rather than Washington.
November 21, 2007
It made me want to visit Chicago (not hard) even more, as well as be more engaged in politics. You know, something beyond simply complaining about our elected officials.
p.s. Thank you to Nancy Pearl's Book Lust for turning me onto this author.
p.s. Thank you to Nancy Pearl's Book Lust for turning me onto this author.
August 23, 2023
I've been meaning to read something by Ward Just for *years*. Still, it's taken me this long to finally do so. Indeed, the book I read--bought at the Harvard Bookstore in the late 90s--has been in my possession through two moves and one significant relocation overseas.
Happily, though it took me decades to get here, I wasn't at all disappointed. In fact I was more than gratified. I'd characterize it as a nice upside surprise.
Just's general focus is politics and journalism and often the intersection of the two. But this book is almost wholly focused on politics. Indeed, given the beauty and fluidity of the writing, and the author's clear regard for his main character, I'd say this book is a paean to public service, including to the sometimes unsavory actions or questionable alliances it often takes to move up that totem pole. As such, it's also perhaps an ode to the Chicago political machine that Just was so familiar with.
Jack Gance, a young Chicagoan begins his career as a highly talented pollster working for the movers and shakers of Chicago politics during the 1960 election that brought JFK to power in Washington. After the election Gance himself goes to Washington. There he works his way into presidential circles, spending years working in the White House through an array of administrations. Finally, during the 1980s he runs for office himself and becomes a Senator.
Via beautifully rendered prose and breathtakingly succinct descriptions and characterizations, we're given to understand the sacrifices and trade-offs that one ultimately well-lived life in politics might require.
Happily, though it took me decades to get here, I wasn't at all disappointed. In fact I was more than gratified. I'd characterize it as a nice upside surprise.
Just's general focus is politics and journalism and often the intersection of the two. But this book is almost wholly focused on politics. Indeed, given the beauty and fluidity of the writing, and the author's clear regard for his main character, I'd say this book is a paean to public service, including to the sometimes unsavory actions or questionable alliances it often takes to move up that totem pole. As such, it's also perhaps an ode to the Chicago political machine that Just was so familiar with.
Jack Gance, a young Chicagoan begins his career as a highly talented pollster working for the movers and shakers of Chicago politics during the 1960 election that brought JFK to power in Washington. After the election Gance himself goes to Washington. There he works his way into presidential circles, spending years working in the White House through an array of administrations. Finally, during the 1980s he runs for office himself and becomes a Senator.
Via beautifully rendered prose and breathtakingly succinct descriptions and characterizations, we're given to understand the sacrifices and trade-offs that one ultimately well-lived life in politics might require.
July 1, 2012
jack gance by ward just, the 1st story i will read from this writer...looks like he has a few titles...dating from 1970 to 1997...this one is from 1989...he has two non-fiction titles, too...
dedicated to sarah...
has a preface to the 1997 edition...my copy...family of newspaper reporters, sounds like....papers cost 3-cents...'this was just after the war.'...his father's business was newspapers...his grandfather's, dispensing patronage through editorials....the language of authority...half-finished sentences and formal smiles...lake county, illinois.
story beings:
vacations were automatic and followed a pattern. the day after school ended we left the apartment on the near north side and drove to the little fort river valley, where we rented a cabin on big lake near the wisconsin line. this was during the way. the trip took two hours in the red long-hooded buick, my brother and i in the back seat and our parents up front. in those days the country began just north of chicago.
onward and upward
update at the p-139 mark, 17 jul 12, tuesday afternoon...3:33 p.m. e.s.t.
the story is divided into three parts:
part one 'forties and 'fifties pp 1-137
part two 'seventies pp 138-220
part three 'eighties pp 221-279, the end
the preface says that just used & incorporated the experiences of his family, his father and grandfather. part one concerns itself w/chicago...some time spent on establishing his family, his father, in real estate, watching the cardinal next door...prison time for the old man, who did not ask for help...had he asked, he would have been provided it...he did his time, got out, mother and father move to florida...jack stays on...he works w/numbers.
in part one, i kept waiting for something to be said about voter fraud...part one ends before the election of 1960 is known, but though there is an undercurrent of "the fix" being in...jack, supplying the man...the man capitalized...with numbers to either confirm what he believes, or to wake him up to things he is unaware...establishing jack's worth to the machine. but, alas, nothing about voter fraud...save for the implication...jack is not a part of that family...he is not that close...
just establishes a time-frame at the beginning of many of the ten chapters of part one...using phrases like:....."two years earlier"...."last year at university"....."years later..."..."a year later..."
during this time, he has an affair with a married woman...events transpire...a year later, at end of part one, jack runs into her, again...in a park on his way home...after he has been dismissed, having provided the numbers...he is a kind of pollster...she is returning to the tidewater of virginia...and he may be headed for washington, d.c.
a quote: "a successful campaign exploited the dream and suppressed the nightmare."
update, finished, 18 jul 12, wednesday morning, 7:09 a.m. e.s.t.
an okay read...4-stars, because i don't believe just was as honest with the story as he could have been...mentioned earlier, the suggestion that the fix was in...vote fraud...it happened, it happens, it was not addressed. as he says in the last line...washington "gave and gave and gave and expected nothing in return but loyalty."
just was loyal to the cause.
dishonest...there is this other line at the end that tickles me: "and you lived to struggle another day, always within the rules." call me a cynic, but washington hasn't followed the rules since 1776. if anything, it has strayed further and further from the rules, subject to the whims of many.
...what else? just does not use quotation-marks around dialogue and there is little, or none, of he said she said. it is obvious who is speaking...the story-line does not revolve around a pivotal moment...although there are moments that are brought forward to the end...a fish jack caught, the scene that followed, between his old man and a friend at the lake...
...there is an interesting scene at the end...one of the movers/shakers playing golf w/jack...advising him on a campaign against an anonymous "she"...a one-legged golfer ahead of them with 3 others...the point, i imagine, that to get in the hole you have to swing the club, move the ball, but it's mucho easier w/moneyed/connected friends...
another thing...for having a "subjective" 1st-person narrator, there is precious little that bothers jack gance...he has affairs with married women...as mentioned, with the idea that "the fix" is in...that is never returned to...not even with hindsight, not with wonder, with questions. loyal to the cause...
the story moves through an expanse of time....40s-50s----70s--80s...at one point, it is apparent that kennedy is president, briefly...i think time flips ahead on the same page from election to assassination...apparently...for the telling is vague...and in another time, the 70s...i'm wondering, well, who is president? nixon? ford? it is all so general...
all so vague...like the golf game at the end...the anonymous "she" jack is running against...numbers...polls...ideas...sam's brother, a mover and shaker with ideas, heads of state by the end...figureheads...
like election time...some talking head...looking out, eyes and head moving, neither seeing individuals nor acknowledging their existence, other than as numbers in a crowd...a vote. all so abstract and vague. ...as if he is listening to an echo that only he can hear, that only he is fascinated by...
hmmmm, 4-stars?
dedicated to sarah...
has a preface to the 1997 edition...my copy...family of newspaper reporters, sounds like....papers cost 3-cents...'this was just after the war.'...his father's business was newspapers...his grandfather's, dispensing patronage through editorials....the language of authority...half-finished sentences and formal smiles...lake county, illinois.
story beings:
vacations were automatic and followed a pattern. the day after school ended we left the apartment on the near north side and drove to the little fort river valley, where we rented a cabin on big lake near the wisconsin line. this was during the way. the trip took two hours in the red long-hooded buick, my brother and i in the back seat and our parents up front. in those days the country began just north of chicago.
onward and upward
update at the p-139 mark, 17 jul 12, tuesday afternoon...3:33 p.m. e.s.t.
the story is divided into three parts:
part one 'forties and 'fifties pp 1-137
part two 'seventies pp 138-220
part three 'eighties pp 221-279, the end
the preface says that just used & incorporated the experiences of his family, his father and grandfather. part one concerns itself w/chicago...some time spent on establishing his family, his father, in real estate, watching the cardinal next door...prison time for the old man, who did not ask for help...had he asked, he would have been provided it...he did his time, got out, mother and father move to florida...jack stays on...he works w/numbers.
in part one, i kept waiting for something to be said about voter fraud...part one ends before the election of 1960 is known, but though there is an undercurrent of "the fix" being in...jack, supplying the man...the man capitalized...with numbers to either confirm what he believes, or to wake him up to things he is unaware...establishing jack's worth to the machine. but, alas, nothing about voter fraud...save for the implication...jack is not a part of that family...he is not that close...
just establishes a time-frame at the beginning of many of the ten chapters of part one...using phrases like:....."two years earlier"...."last year at university"....."years later..."..."a year later..."
during this time, he has an affair with a married woman...events transpire...a year later, at end of part one, jack runs into her, again...in a park on his way home...after he has been dismissed, having provided the numbers...he is a kind of pollster...she is returning to the tidewater of virginia...and he may be headed for washington, d.c.
a quote: "a successful campaign exploited the dream and suppressed the nightmare."
update, finished, 18 jul 12, wednesday morning, 7:09 a.m. e.s.t.
an okay read...4-stars, because i don't believe just was as honest with the story as he could have been...mentioned earlier, the suggestion that the fix was in...vote fraud...it happened, it happens, it was not addressed. as he says in the last line...washington "gave and gave and gave and expected nothing in return but loyalty."
just was loyal to the cause.
dishonest...there is this other line at the end that tickles me: "and you lived to struggle another day, always within the rules." call me a cynic, but washington hasn't followed the rules since 1776. if anything, it has strayed further and further from the rules, subject to the whims of many.
...what else? just does not use quotation-marks around dialogue and there is little, or none, of he said she said. it is obvious who is speaking...the story-line does not revolve around a pivotal moment...although there are moments that are brought forward to the end...a fish jack caught, the scene that followed, between his old man and a friend at the lake...
...there is an interesting scene at the end...one of the movers/shakers playing golf w/jack...advising him on a campaign against an anonymous "she"...a one-legged golfer ahead of them with 3 others...the point, i imagine, that to get in the hole you have to swing the club, move the ball, but it's mucho easier w/moneyed/connected friends...
another thing...for having a "subjective" 1st-person narrator, there is precious little that bothers jack gance...he has affairs with married women...as mentioned, with the idea that "the fix" is in...that is never returned to...not even with hindsight, not with wonder, with questions. loyal to the cause...
the story moves through an expanse of time....40s-50s----70s--80s...at one point, it is apparent that kennedy is president, briefly...i think time flips ahead on the same page from election to assassination...apparently...for the telling is vague...and in another time, the 70s...i'm wondering, well, who is president? nixon? ford? it is all so general...
all so vague...like the golf game at the end...the anonymous "she" jack is running against...numbers...polls...ideas...sam's brother, a mover and shaker with ideas, heads of state by the end...figureheads...
like election time...some talking head...looking out, eyes and head moving, neither seeing individuals nor acknowledging their existence, other than as numbers in a crowd...a vote. all so abstract and vague. ...as if he is listening to an echo that only he can hear, that only he is fascinated by...
hmmmm, 4-stars?
February 17, 2025
I found this book to be well-written and interesting. It reads a bit slow and at times focuses to much on Gance's personal life instead of the looks at politics that are the supposed crux of the novel. I found this to be an interesting look at the machines in Chicago and Washington that control government. Just ties things together over the course of the book and introduced us to a host of characters that are perhaps more compelling than our main character, Jack Gance.
February 10, 2010
Great book involving Chicago and DC politics, family dynamics and personal choices.
November 4, 2012
Interesting story about the inside workings of government and how it's all about who you know.
December 16, 2012
I will definitely read more by this author. He is a very talented writer. He add a touch of romanticism to politics in Washington.
November 15, 2014
A first-rate political novel, part Saul Bellow, part Charles McCarry.
November 12, 2012
The best book on politics and government and how the lives of the people involved are transformed.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews