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Truth Like the Sun
A classic and hugely entertaining political novel, the cat-and-mouse story of urban intrigue in Seattle both in 1962, when Seattle hosted the World's Fair, and in 2001, after its transformation in the Microsoft gold rush.
Larger than life, Roger Morgan was the mastermind behind the fair that made the city famous and is still a backstage power forty years later, when at the age of seventy he runs for mayor in hopes of restoring all of Seattle's former glory. Helen Gulanos, a reporter every bit as eager to make her mark, sees her assignment to investigate the events of 1962 become front-page news with Morgan's candidacy, and resolves to find out who he really is and where his power comes from: in 1962, a brash and excitable young promoter, greeting everyone from Elvis Presley to Lyndon Johnson, smooth-talking himself out of difficult situations, dipping in and out of secret card games; now, a beloved public figure with, it turns out, still-plentiful secrets. Wonderfully interwoven into this tale of the city of dreams are backroom deals, idealism and pragmatism, the best and worst ambitions, and all the aspirations that shape our communities and our lives.
Larger than life, Roger Morgan was the mastermind behind the fair that made the city famous and is still a backstage power forty years later, when at the age of seventy he runs for mayor in hopes of restoring all of Seattle's former glory. Helen Gulanos, a reporter every bit as eager to make her mark, sees her assignment to investigate the events of 1962 become front-page news with Morgan's candidacy, and resolves to find out who he really is and where his power comes from: in 1962, a brash and excitable young promoter, greeting everyone from Elvis Presley to Lyndon Johnson, smooth-talking himself out of difficult situations, dipping in and out of secret card games; now, a beloved public figure with, it turns out, still-plentiful secrets. Wonderfully interwoven into this tale of the city of dreams are backroom deals, idealism and pragmatism, the best and worst ambitions, and all the aspirations that shape our communities and our lives.
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First published January 1, 2012
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About the author
Jim Lynch
27 books233 followersJim Lynch is the author of the novels The Highest Tide, Border Songs and Truth Like the Sun, all of which were performed on stage and won prizes, including an Indies Choice Honor Book Award, a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and a Dashiell Hammett Prize finalist. His next novel, Before the Wind, will be released in April 2016. As a newspaper reporter, Lynch has won national awards, including the Livingston Young Journalist Award. He lives in Olympia, Washington, with his wife and daughter.
Lynch's book tour with his next novel, "Before the Wind," will begin in mid-April 2016 and will feature visits to east and west coast bookstores and venues. Dates and locations will be available soon.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 345 reviews
June 9, 2012
Hot damn. I really liked this book. As a result I don't have a lot to say about it. It's so much easier to trash a bad book then to laud a good one.
So here's a sentence I quite liked from page 16:
Her eyes panned the glistening skyline as a cruise ship peeled away from the waterfront like an entire city block calving into the bay.
Pretty great, eh? I'd recommend this book to just about anyone, especially those with a fondness of Seattle.
So here's a sentence I quite liked from page 16:
Her eyes panned the glistening skyline as a cruise ship peeled away from the waterfront like an entire city block calving into the bay.
Pretty great, eh? I'd recommend this book to just about anyone, especially those with a fondness of Seattle.
December 25, 2016
'Hard-nosed yet profoundly humane' is cover description for this book and one that I would have applied myself. It is listed on the New York Times Best Books of 2012 and has won critical acclaim. Set in two moments of recent history just prior to times when America lost her innocence; 1962 in the shadow of the looming Cuba missile crisis and 2001 in the months preceding 9/11 although the story does not deal with either subject directly. It does not matter that I was not even born in '62, Lynch's research is so thorough, I might as well have been because when reading this novel, I truly felt I was in Seattle at that time.
In 1962, it is the opening of the World Fair and the Space Needle in Seattle and we meet it's mastermind, Roger Morgan. In the front page story of the novel's fictitious Seattle paper Post-Intelligencer “He's ambitious, photogenic, courteous and agnostic... He has advised Boeing and Microsoft and five of the last six mayors. He's arguably played as much of a background or foreground role in shaping this city as anyone else alive.” His dream has come to fruition and he's running on adrenalin. Everyone who is anyone is coming; JFK, Elvis, Count Basie, LBJ, senators, world leaders and the tourists are arriving in their thousands. In the background, he's still the go-to guy for the smooth operation of the day and in the foreground, everyone wants to shake his hand. But Roger has problems of his own, he's engaged to Linda who he really doesn't want to marry and is to tending to his eighty year old mother and he's trying to find his son.
In 2001, there's Helen, single mother, new to Seattle and new investigative reporter at Post-Intelligencer and she's trying to land a big story. But her editor assigns her a retrospective to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of Seattle's World Fair and here she discovers the golden boy, Roger Morgan and it just happens that Roger may be hiding something. Meanwhile, Roger has just decided to run for major; Seattle has come through the failure of the dot.com industry but they still have Bill Gates and Microsoft and of course, Boeing. On her own volition, Helen decides to uncover the real man behind the Roger Morgan image. In doing so, she unearths a hidden story of graft within the police force, building industry corruption, seemingly shady deals involving the World Fair and she meets a source whose information is about to bust the whole thing wide open again.
The chapters in 1962 are electric and you find yourself nearly panting at Morgan's pace. Similarly, in 2001, Helen's race to unearth the facts of her story, get it written and printed before the mayoral election is gripping. A former reporter himself, Lynch displays his talents as an exceptionally good author in keeping the excitement and tension alive until the very end. An extremely well crafted and fast paced novel; Lynch has extensively researched the events and brings them to life. Although Roger and Helen are creations of the author, the other characters are all real people and this adds to the story's brilliance. In one word, this novel is 'alive'. 4.5★
In 1962, it is the opening of the World Fair and the Space Needle in Seattle and we meet it's mastermind, Roger Morgan. In the front page story of the novel's fictitious Seattle paper Post-Intelligencer “He's ambitious, photogenic, courteous and agnostic... He has advised Boeing and Microsoft and five of the last six mayors. He's arguably played as much of a background or foreground role in shaping this city as anyone else alive.” His dream has come to fruition and he's running on adrenalin. Everyone who is anyone is coming; JFK, Elvis, Count Basie, LBJ, senators, world leaders and the tourists are arriving in their thousands. In the background, he's still the go-to guy for the smooth operation of the day and in the foreground, everyone wants to shake his hand. But Roger has problems of his own, he's engaged to Linda who he really doesn't want to marry and is to tending to his eighty year old mother and he's trying to find his son.
In 2001, there's Helen, single mother, new to Seattle and new investigative reporter at Post-Intelligencer and she's trying to land a big story. But her editor assigns her a retrospective to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of Seattle's World Fair and here she discovers the golden boy, Roger Morgan and it just happens that Roger may be hiding something. Meanwhile, Roger has just decided to run for major; Seattle has come through the failure of the dot.com industry but they still have Bill Gates and Microsoft and of course, Boeing. On her own volition, Helen decides to uncover the real man behind the Roger Morgan image. In doing so, she unearths a hidden story of graft within the police force, building industry corruption, seemingly shady deals involving the World Fair and she meets a source whose information is about to bust the whole thing wide open again.
The chapters in 1962 are electric and you find yourself nearly panting at Morgan's pace. Similarly, in 2001, Helen's race to unearth the facts of her story, get it written and printed before the mayoral election is gripping. A former reporter himself, Lynch displays his talents as an exceptionally good author in keeping the excitement and tension alive until the very end. An extremely well crafted and fast paced novel; Lynch has extensively researched the events and brings them to life. Although Roger and Helen are creations of the author, the other characters are all real people and this adds to the story's brilliance. In one word, this novel is 'alive'. 4.5★
October 23, 2012
I live one mile from the Space Needle. Seattle Center is, literally, my local park. Lynch gets the details of the place right, including how unchanged it is to this day. Only over the past few years have they started modernizing and sprucing the place up, taking the hard choices the nostalgic and better memories kept opposing. The stories he tells are like stories I've heard, and many of the characters based on real Seattle old-time characters I've read about.
I also work in the old Post-Intelligencer building, where despite the P-I Globe turning over, there is no newspaper business left. Even the website team relocated, leaving only a few unconnected tenants in their old space (one of which I work for, ironically in the online news business). The characters from the newsroom seemed also to be pretty accurate to type.
But still the whole thing didn't add up for me. I like the subversive ways he dealt with common plot tropes, not giving in to making this a book that builds to something false or overplayed. The whole work felt a bit rushed, though, as if he didn't have the time to grind the wood with the fine grit -- some corners are still a little sharp.
Both his characters were nearly there -- his old-world charmer with the political connections and humor, the mountain climber who travelled and could wear rain gear and white tie. He was fascinating, and close to fleshed out, but had some hollow bits and didn't quite read for me, as if he were a ghost I could see through but couldn't quite get the full measure of.
And his newspaper reporter was bordering on cliché, unwilling to reveal anything of herself, she zigged and zagged but barely stopped enough to truly read her. As if both of them were being described by the space around them not the space they take up.
Still, I liked the read. I hope it is the one Lynch wanted, but I wonder if he would have wanted more time with it. Think it could have been a great book if it had percolated more. I wonder how much pressure there was to get it out for the 50th anniversary of the world's fair. I wonder how much the book would have changed if that deadline was two years away.
I also work in the old Post-Intelligencer building, where despite the P-I Globe turning over, there is no newspaper business left. Even the website team relocated, leaving only a few unconnected tenants in their old space (one of which I work for, ironically in the online news business). The characters from the newsroom seemed also to be pretty accurate to type.
But still the whole thing didn't add up for me. I like the subversive ways he dealt with common plot tropes, not giving in to making this a book that builds to something false or overplayed. The whole work felt a bit rushed, though, as if he didn't have the time to grind the wood with the fine grit -- some corners are still a little sharp.
Both his characters were nearly there -- his old-world charmer with the political connections and humor, the mountain climber who travelled and could wear rain gear and white tie. He was fascinating, and close to fleshed out, but had some hollow bits and didn't quite read for me, as if he were a ghost I could see through but couldn't quite get the full measure of.
And his newspaper reporter was bordering on cliché, unwilling to reveal anything of herself, she zigged and zagged but barely stopped enough to truly read her. As if both of them were being described by the space around them not the space they take up.
Still, I liked the read. I hope it is the one Lynch wanted, but I wonder if he would have wanted more time with it. Think it could have been a great book if it had percolated more. I wonder how much pressure there was to get it out for the 50th anniversary of the world's fair. I wonder how much the book would have changed if that deadline was two years away.
April 12, 2016
http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainme...
"Truth Like the Sun," by Jim Lynch
By JENNY SHANK Special Contributor books@dallasnews.com
Published: 13 April 2012 03:21 PM
Fifty years ago, Seattle hosted the World’s Fair, a six-month extravaganza whose approach prompted private investors to rush the Space Needle through construction, completing it in time to serve as a symbol of the futuristic image the 1962 fair hoped to project.
As Jim Lynch writes in his taut and accomplished new novel, Truth Like the Sun, the Space Needle was meant to beckon newcomers to Seattle: “Where better to start afresh? A whole new way of living in a city of things to come. That’s right. A city so short on history it’s mostly all future anyway.”
In this brisk, bustling and good-humored work, Lynch imagines the Space Needle as the pet project of charming young businessman Roger Morgan, “the grand exalted dreamer himself,” who convinced the power brokers of “stuffy, postwar Seattle” to host the fair, and drew the original sketch for the Space Needle on a napkin. Morgan, who “suffers from an attention surplus disorder,” whirls at the center of the fair, solving problems, schmoozing, shepherding dignitaries such as LBJ, Edward R. Murrow and Elvis through its wonders, seeking to impress them with the city he loves beyond all measure.
Meanwhile in 2001, ambitious journalist Helen Gulanos has just arrived from parts east for a reporting job with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. A single mother with Pulitzer dreams, Gulanos chafes when she’s assigned a story about the 40th anniversary of the fair, which she learns is “a local sacred cow with fawning coverage shamelessly regurgitated” through the prior anniversaries. Known for exposing corrupt politicians at her previous newspapers, Gulanos aims for a meatier story and finds it as she decides to investigate the past of mystery man Morgan, who at age 70 has decided to run for mayor.
The novel’s structure is clever and propulsive, alternating one chapter set in 1962 with one in 2001. The reader learns Morgan’s secrets as Gulanos searches library archives and interviews ancient sources, some of whom harbor grudges against Morgan. Through the 1962 sections, Lynch shows what actually happened, demonstrating how difficult the truth can be to pin down and how often rushed newspaper articles fail to capture nuance and intent.
Through sharp detail and incisive descriptions, the 1962 sections bring the era to life by conveying the gee-whiz-isn’t-the-future-fantastic World’s Fair vibe paired with the overhanging dread of nuclear annihilation prompted by the Cuban missile crisis. The 2001 sections, set before Sept. 11, when newspaper publishing had just begun to falter, capture a historical moment that feels nearly as distant as 1962.
Before Lynch became a novelist, he was an award-winning reporter for newspapers including the Seattle Times, the rival of the paper Gulanos works for. Perhaps he picked the P.I. for Gulanos because there’s something more poetic about working for a doomed newspaper (the P.I. shifted to publishing online-only in 2009). Truth Like the Sun bears more than a whiff of nostalgia for the way newspapers can tell a city’s evolving story as no other media can, even through imperfect articles.
Jenny Shank’s first novel, The Ringer, was a finalist for the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association’s Reading the West Award.
"Truth Like the Sun," by Jim Lynch
By JENNY SHANK Special Contributor books@dallasnews.com
Published: 13 April 2012 03:21 PM
Fifty years ago, Seattle hosted the World’s Fair, a six-month extravaganza whose approach prompted private investors to rush the Space Needle through construction, completing it in time to serve as a symbol of the futuristic image the 1962 fair hoped to project.
As Jim Lynch writes in his taut and accomplished new novel, Truth Like the Sun, the Space Needle was meant to beckon newcomers to Seattle: “Where better to start afresh? A whole new way of living in a city of things to come. That’s right. A city so short on history it’s mostly all future anyway.”
In this brisk, bustling and good-humored work, Lynch imagines the Space Needle as the pet project of charming young businessman Roger Morgan, “the grand exalted dreamer himself,” who convinced the power brokers of “stuffy, postwar Seattle” to host the fair, and drew the original sketch for the Space Needle on a napkin. Morgan, who “suffers from an attention surplus disorder,” whirls at the center of the fair, solving problems, schmoozing, shepherding dignitaries such as LBJ, Edward R. Murrow and Elvis through its wonders, seeking to impress them with the city he loves beyond all measure.
Meanwhile in 2001, ambitious journalist Helen Gulanos has just arrived from parts east for a reporting job with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. A single mother with Pulitzer dreams, Gulanos chafes when she’s assigned a story about the 40th anniversary of the fair, which she learns is “a local sacred cow with fawning coverage shamelessly regurgitated” through the prior anniversaries. Known for exposing corrupt politicians at her previous newspapers, Gulanos aims for a meatier story and finds it as she decides to investigate the past of mystery man Morgan, who at age 70 has decided to run for mayor.
The novel’s structure is clever and propulsive, alternating one chapter set in 1962 with one in 2001. The reader learns Morgan’s secrets as Gulanos searches library archives and interviews ancient sources, some of whom harbor grudges against Morgan. Through the 1962 sections, Lynch shows what actually happened, demonstrating how difficult the truth can be to pin down and how often rushed newspaper articles fail to capture nuance and intent.
Through sharp detail and incisive descriptions, the 1962 sections bring the era to life by conveying the gee-whiz-isn’t-the-future-fantastic World’s Fair vibe paired with the overhanging dread of nuclear annihilation prompted by the Cuban missile crisis. The 2001 sections, set before Sept. 11, when newspaper publishing had just begun to falter, capture a historical moment that feels nearly as distant as 1962.
Before Lynch became a novelist, he was an award-winning reporter for newspapers including the Seattle Times, the rival of the paper Gulanos works for. Perhaps he picked the P.I. for Gulanos because there’s something more poetic about working for a doomed newspaper (the P.I. shifted to publishing online-only in 2009). Truth Like the Sun bears more than a whiff of nostalgia for the way newspapers can tell a city’s evolving story as no other media can, even through imperfect articles.
Jenny Shank’s first novel, The Ringer, was a finalist for the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association’s Reading the West Award.
July 27, 2012
This is the third Jim Lynch book that I've read. His books are quirky. This was my least favorite. His first book, "The Highest Tide" was especially enjoyable because I loved his gifted young protagonist. His second, "Border Songs" was set just a few miles away from where I live and featured eccentric characters who were humorous, if not completely believable. The beginning of this novel was really underwhelming until I began to wonder who was going to win the tug-of-war between the main character and his adversary. That curiosity took me to the end of the book, but I was never deeply involved.
I do like the fact that Lynch is a different writer than I usually read and quite clever. I appreciate that his books are set in Washington and raise my interest in what he digs up about each location for background material. Lynch manages to drum up the most unique and fascinating people with whom I do not identify as I do with most novels I read.
I do like the fact that Lynch is a different writer than I usually read and quite clever. I appreciate that his books are set in Washington and raise my interest in what he digs up about each location for background material. Lynch manages to drum up the most unique and fascinating people with whom I do not identify as I do with most novels I read.
June 30, 2012
"I don't have a plan," Elvis volunteers. "I just have a feel. Trying to get a better understanding of myself. The mistakes I make always come back around. Truth is like the sun, isn't it? You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't going away."
That snippet from a conversation between Roger Morgan and Elvis Presley in September 1962 gives Jim Lynch's novel its title and is a quick summation of the plot. Indeed, it could be the summation of the plot of many novels and many lives. The mistakes that we make always seem to come back around, often when we least expect them.
The place is Seattle. The novel switches back and forth between the time of the World's Fair that took place there in 1962 and the year 2001, a time of other momentous events. The man most responsible for the Fair's success was Roger Morgan, the mastermind of it all. It was an event that transformed the city from a sleepy outpost of the past to a place that embraced the future and was a magnet for farsighted thinkers. And Roger was the promoter that brought it all together and made it happen. He was brash and daring as he scrambled about trying to amass the funds to build the iconic Space Needle and all the other pavilions and exhibits. He was dubbed the unofficial mayor of Seattle. He was the man that everyone wanted a piece of.
Forty years later, he is still promoting Seattle, and at 70 years old, he suddenly decides to run to become the mayor for real of his city.
In 2001, reporter Helen Gulanos is new to the city. An investigative reporter with the Post-Intelligencer, she has come here to try to make a journalistic reputation for herself. She is a young single mother trying to raise a pre-school aged son and to make a life for them in a city that she doesn't really know or understand. As fate would have it, she just happens to be present when Roger Morgan announces his decision to run for mayor and her journalistic instincts begin to twitch. She intuits that there is an interesting story here, perhaps one that has not been told, and she determines to tell it.
In digging for her story, Helen begins to find the name of the beloved legend Roger Morgan turning up in some unsavory places - namely in stories of mid-century real-estate scandals, graft, and gambling - and what may have started out as a human interest story takes on the tones of a political expose'. Moreover, it is an expose' being produced under time pressure as the mayoral primary looms.
It also emerges that Helen herself has some secrets she would prefer not to be widely known and it seems that the object of her investigation has an uncanny knowledge and understanding of those secrets. And yet each of these individuals, who may be seen as adversaries, also has a grudging admiration for the style of the other and a sympathy for the problems facing him/her.
I greatly enjoyed Jim Lynch's two previous novels set in the Northwest, Border Songs and The Highest Tide, but, frankly, I found it difficult to really get "into" this one. The two main characters didn't really grab me at first and I was about two-thirds of the way through before their fates began to somewhat interest me. In fact, even at the end, I was still trying to make up my mind about them.
This novel is a time-traveler. It exists in 1962 at the time of the Cuban missile crisis and also in 2001, ending on September 10. Perhaps the message is that everyday sins and tragedies are dwarfed and overwhelmed by the tide of time and events. But, in fact, the truth is like the sun and it isn't going away forever. It always returns. Even in rainy Seattle.
March 5, 2015
As a native Washingtonian (yes, we do exist), Seattle was long the city of my dreams. I have lived in magnificent and unforgettable places on four continents, yet none of my fond memories of those lands compares to the deep affection I have for Seattle, the first place in nearly forty years of wandering which truly feels like home. And home it has been, since December 2007.
In other words, I dig this town and I dig reading about it. So I'm pretty darn predisposed to wax poetic about a novel that details with the eye of an insider Seattle's rise from a dumpy port town to the glittering Emerald City of hi-tech, high literacy and high-octane coffee. Toss in living history, hard-boiled newspaper reporters, hints of graft, Elvis and quirky bits that only a true Seattleite would get and buddy, you've got yourself a reader.
So, I liked this. I really did. This is when a half-star would come in handy. But I wasn't swept away.
The story alternates between the 1962 World's Fair - when our beloved icon, the Space Needle, first began rotating - and Seattle in 2001, after the tech bust dulled the city's lustre. The contemporary saga, which unfolds in the shadow of the Monica Lewinsky debacle and the travesty of the 2000 presidential election, feels anachronistic. I think the sense of urgency of the scandal is lost on me. The central premise - that a long-ago city hero who suddenly tosses in his hat for mayor may have forty-year-old political skeletons in his closet - just doesn't strike my jaded heart as all that compelling. And the writing is a bit pokey, as well -particularly the 1962 scenes.
A solid good read, but as I pull out adjectives from the jacket blurbs: mesmerizing, hugely entertaining, powerful, devastating, I think "Hmm...not so much." If I want to feel mesmerized, entertained, awed and devastated, I'll bike down to Shilshole Bay and gaze out at the Olympic Mountains. And know that I live in a most spectacular place. True 'dat. Even without the sun.
In other words, I dig this town and I dig reading about it. So I'm pretty darn predisposed to wax poetic about a novel that details with the eye of an insider Seattle's rise from a dumpy port town to the glittering Emerald City of hi-tech, high literacy and high-octane coffee. Toss in living history, hard-boiled newspaper reporters, hints of graft, Elvis and quirky bits that only a true Seattleite would get and buddy, you've got yourself a reader.
So, I liked this. I really did. This is when a half-star would come in handy. But I wasn't swept away.
The story alternates between the 1962 World's Fair - when our beloved icon, the Space Needle, first began rotating - and Seattle in 2001, after the tech bust dulled the city's lustre. The contemporary saga, which unfolds in the shadow of the Monica Lewinsky debacle and the travesty of the 2000 presidential election, feels anachronistic. I think the sense of urgency of the scandal is lost on me. The central premise - that a long-ago city hero who suddenly tosses in his hat for mayor may have forty-year-old political skeletons in his closet - just doesn't strike my jaded heart as all that compelling. And the writing is a bit pokey, as well -particularly the 1962 scenes.
A solid good read, but as I pull out adjectives from the jacket blurbs: mesmerizing, hugely entertaining, powerful, devastating, I think "Hmm...not so much." If I want to feel mesmerized, entertained, awed and devastated, I'll bike down to Shilshole Bay and gaze out at the Olympic Mountains. And know that I live in a most spectacular place. True 'dat. Even without the sun.
July 22, 2012
Roger Morgan is kind of an Elmer Gantry of municipal boosterism, hustling “father” of the 1962 Seattle World’s fair. Helen Gulanos is a violin-playing single mom with a head of hair like a tumbleweed who, in 2001, is building a career as an investigative newspaper reporter. When Roger, still a Seattle-area legend, unexpectedly makes a run for mayor at age 70, Helen’s newspaper reluctantly takes a run at puncturing the reputation of “the grand exalted dreamer.” Roger’s life-long friend and advisor Teddy Severson says of the relentless reporter: “She plays with sharp knives.” (p64) Great line!
The story alternates between 1962 during the Fair’s surprisingly successful run and 2001, which is the beginning of the death of two-newspaper, old-school competitive journalism in major U.S. cities. All in all, the juxtaposed settings work well by complementing and informing each other, heightened by some fun vignettes of historical figures such as a farting LBJ, John Glenn as a robotic NASA celebrity and a somber, thoughtful Elvis.
With his many personal secrets, his over-reaching and hubris, Roger is a tightrope walker sure to take a fatal flaw under the spotlight of a heated political race. The surprise is that it takes so long. He describes himself as a “civic handyman” and “midwife for good ideas”—which is not the same thing as a fixer. His gift, like that of the best con men, is focusing on the dream and wearing blinders to everything else. I told myself at about the four-fifths point in the novel that if Roger ended in a particular, clumsily foreshadowed way, I would throw the book across the room. Sorry, friendly branch library, but toss it I did! The perfunctory ending is the only real weakness in Lynch’s story, which takes it’s title (and moral) from a line spoken by Elvis: “Truth is like the sun, isn’t it? You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t going away” (p148).
The story alternates between 1962 during the Fair’s surprisingly successful run and 2001, which is the beginning of the death of two-newspaper, old-school competitive journalism in major U.S. cities. All in all, the juxtaposed settings work well by complementing and informing each other, heightened by some fun vignettes of historical figures such as a farting LBJ, John Glenn as a robotic NASA celebrity and a somber, thoughtful Elvis.
With his many personal secrets, his over-reaching and hubris, Roger is a tightrope walker sure to take a fatal flaw under the spotlight of a heated political race. The surprise is that it takes so long. He describes himself as a “civic handyman” and “midwife for good ideas”—which is not the same thing as a fixer. His gift, like that of the best con men, is focusing on the dream and wearing blinders to everything else. I told myself at about the four-fifths point in the novel that if Roger ended in a particular, clumsily foreshadowed way, I would throw the book across the room. Sorry, friendly branch library, but toss it I did! The perfunctory ending is the only real weakness in Lynch’s story, which takes it’s title (and moral) from a line spoken by Elvis: “Truth is like the sun, isn’t it? You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t going away” (p148).
August 26, 2012
Ambition and corruption, power and politics, the boom and bust times of a city are all elements of Jim Lynch’s latest novel Truth Like the Sun. Set in Seattle in 1962 and 2011, the novel explores the resiliency of the city. In 1962 the eyes of the world are on Seattle as it hosts the World’s Fair. The theme of the fair is focuses on the promises of the future; the monorail, the Space Needle, the microwave oven and the gains being made in the scientific world are all to be featured. Meanwhile the Cold War is being waged, Cuba is making threats of nuclear attack on the US, and families are constructing bomb shelters. Roger Morgan, the Father of the Fair, while aware of all of these things is determined to put the Fair and his beloved city of Seattle on the map. Young and somewhat idealistic Morgan is a self made man, desperate to make something of himself, but with secrets in his past he would rather not confront. When he unwittingly becomes involved in the corruption and back room deals that have built the city and in fact helped to bring the Fair to Seattle, Morgan is forced to examine his life and culpability in the scandals that are revealed as the Fair comes to a close. Thirty-nine years later in 2001, Helen Gulanos, a young single mother and journalist arrives in Seattle as the ’90’s dotcom bubble has burst and the city has once again fallen into despair. Gulanos is assigned an anniversary story on the Fair and happened to be present when Morgan announces his bid for Mayor. Her story then shifts to exposing Morgan’s past, and the two are forced to confront their own truths. Beautifully executed, complete with flawed but likable characters, Truth Like the Sun is an entertaining look at the city of Seattle as well as personal aspirations and truth.
February 5, 2013
I've been wondering lately if my standards are too low, because I seem to be loving every book I read and giving them pretty high ratings. Well, I don't have to wonder anymore.
I heard about Truth Like the Sun when it first came out and was really looking forward to reading this story set in the Seattle Worlds Fair and also 2001. But the thing about historical fiction is that in order for it to work, either the historical part has to be so well researched that it leaves you wanting to learn more, or the fiction has to be really compelling. Truth Like the Sun has neither.
Roger Morgan is a young up and comer who runs and promotes the fair, and 40 or so years later decides to run for mayor. Helen is a reporter for the Seattle P-I, single mother, and trying to expose the truth about Roger, I guess. Jim Lynch writes like someone who has no experience in Seattle. His descriptions of both characters and their time periods and locations are inadequately, generically described and use stilted, awkward dialogue. All characters become some weird caricatures of...I don't know what, but it isn't Seattle (or Youngstown, Ohio, where Helen is from). Sort of a cross between Barney Miller and Lou Grant and maybe that movie Cocoon where the old people are abducted by the UFO. Luckily the book is short and only took a day or so to read, and I didn't have much going on anyway, otherwise I'd go find Jim Lynch and ask him for my money and my time back.
I heard about Truth Like the Sun when it first came out and was really looking forward to reading this story set in the Seattle Worlds Fair and also 2001. But the thing about historical fiction is that in order for it to work, either the historical part has to be so well researched that it leaves you wanting to learn more, or the fiction has to be really compelling. Truth Like the Sun has neither.
Roger Morgan is a young up and comer who runs and promotes the fair, and 40 or so years later decides to run for mayor. Helen is a reporter for the Seattle P-I, single mother, and trying to expose the truth about Roger, I guess. Jim Lynch writes like someone who has no experience in Seattle. His descriptions of both characters and their time periods and locations are inadequately, generically described and use stilted, awkward dialogue. All characters become some weird caricatures of...I don't know what, but it isn't Seattle (or Youngstown, Ohio, where Helen is from). Sort of a cross between Barney Miller and Lou Grant and maybe that movie Cocoon where the old people are abducted by the UFO. Luckily the book is short and only took a day or so to read, and I didn't have much going on anyway, otherwise I'd go find Jim Lynch and ask him for my money and my time back.
November 9, 2016
Finally, a novel set in a city other than New York. The plot was so-so, but the writing was good, and the mentions of the Space Needle, the Bremerton ferry, the University of Washington, Queen Anne’s Hill, the monorail, the Olympia brewery, the Pike Place Market, and so many other places, made this book a worthwhile trip down memory lane for me.
November 24, 2013
Seattle, that metronatural paradise of fine coffee and clear WiFi, gets a bittersweet love note in this new novel by Jim Lynch. “Truth Like the Sun” illuminates the city’s commingled beauty and vanity with a story of civic pride, political intrigue and journalistic tenacity. That’s a lot for a mere 250 pages to do — Tom Wolfe’s sendup of Atlanta, “A Man in Full,” thundered along for three times that many pages. But perhaps such briskness is appropriate for the trim progressives of America’s most active city.
Knitting together fact and fiction, history and current events, Lynch captures the modern spirit of the Emerald City in the outsize presence of one remarkable character, Roger Morgan, a charmer known affectionately as “Mr. Seattle.” We meet him atop the Space Needle in 1962 on the opening day of the World’s Fair. With a past as cloudy as Seattle’s weather, Roger is the city’s “grand exalted dreamer,” the impossibly young father of the fair, the man who first drew the Space Needle on a cocktail napkin and then saw it rise in 407 days. Everything about him calls for exclamation points! He’s “the city’s good luck charm.” Hundreds of bells clang, thousands of balloons float to the sky, 35 countries join the extravaganza, and throngs of people begin arriving to behold “the world of tomorrow today!”
Roger is an indefatigable schmoozer, and like everybody in this novel, the author is a bit in love with him. I don’t blame him. He’s dashing and gracious, and never less than entirely candid, except to the fiancee he keeps stringing along. His actual position remains glamorously vague: “a midwife for good ideas.” He’s in charge of everything but not burdened by any particular job, which allows him to be all things to all people: developers, politicians, civic organizers, anybody who can help him put on “the most imaginative and spectacular show of our time!” Lynch notes that “he’s increasingly driven half-mad by the limitations of having only one life.” You can’t help but want a little of that zeal to rub off on you.
For most of us mortals, cities seem like such vast, chaotic structures that it’s hard to fathom how one man could exercise much influence. But highways go here or there, apartments rise this high or that high, shopping complexes thrive or die, and none of that happens by accident — or logic. Barely 30, Roger has made himself into an essential liaison among builders, financiers and unions. As the cameras flash at the opening ceremony of the fair, “it occurs to him that he still doesn’t know the full price of the deals he’s struck and the friends he’s made.” His affection for Seattle exceeds anyone’s cynicism about his motives, exceeds perhaps even his own wisdom. Sure, he’s flying too close to the sun, but what a spectacular view.
Although he grew up in Seattle, Lynch was born just a few months before the fair opened, so he brings no personal memories to the city’s seminal event. Nonetheless, he does a fantastic job of re-creating that explosion of civic boosterism, scientific mania and celebrity fawning. Walt Disney raves about this “jewel box” on the West Coast. And so do John Wayne, Roy Rogers, John Glenn and even Prince Philip, who can match Roger charm for charm. Vice President Lyndon Johnson makes a hilarious cameo, whining about his swollen groin. Elvis Presley, a thoughtful and respectful young man just 27 years old, drops by, too, and gives this novel its title. But Lynch reminds us that these are the weeks leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Tourists gliding along the shiny new monorail have reason to wonder whether the future isn’t about to end in a mushroom cloud.
In alternating chapters, the novel switches to 2001, another pre-apocalyptic moment in American history. Roger is now 70 and still just as likable and well-connected as ever. Fed up with the corruption and incivility of his city, he launches a shoestring campaign for mayor: “Vote for the old guy!” He just might win, but an enterprising young reporter from Capitol Hill’s Roll Call has joined the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (this is before it went online-only) and plans to make a name for herself with an exposé about Mr. Seattle.
These modern-day sections provide almost all the drama in the novel, but they’re nowhere near as artful as the 1962 chapters, which let the fair and Roger’s enthusiasm unspool so richly. Although Lynch worked as a journalist in Washington, D.C., and Washington state before turning to fiction, his portrayal of the Post-Intelligencer newsroom feels stale, a collection of the usual suspects borrowed from some TV dramedy about the economic and competitive pressures of modern journalism. (“The Imperfectionists,” that witty newspaper novel by Tom Rachman, transforms those types into marvelously quirky individuals.) The plucky young reporter determined to get to the truth about Roger’s background and maybe win a Pulitzer Prize has potential as a character, but Lynch doesn’t give himself enough room to let her breathe outside that worn archetype. At this length, at this speed, the complex issues he wants to explore about the responsibilities of journalists, the conflict between accuracy and fairness, the corrosive pressure to break news — all come across in primary colors. We need a dramatization of Janet Malcolm’s “The Journalist and the Murderer”; we get a breezy episode of “Lou Grant.”
Not that I didn’t love “Lou Grant” or enjoy this novel, which frames some of the problems of modern journalism with admirable clarity. When Roger mutters, “Life is a challenging and often inexplicable odyssey that doesn’t translate easily into newspaper stories,” he’s arrived at a painful truth about our business, which can slip so quickly from righteous to cruel. But Lynch’s beautifully drawn previous novels, “The Highest Tide” and “Border Songs,” suggest that maybe now he’s being pushed along too quickly by deadlines himself.
Still, in the nation’s second-most-literate city — sorry, Seattle, we’re No. 1 — “Truth Like the Sun” should quickly rise up the local bestseller list. In fact, any reader interested in the relationship between a town and its most enthusiastic participants will respond to this engaging story. But it’s not the literary monument it could have been.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/enterta...
Knitting together fact and fiction, history and current events, Lynch captures the modern spirit of the Emerald City in the outsize presence of one remarkable character, Roger Morgan, a charmer known affectionately as “Mr. Seattle.” We meet him atop the Space Needle in 1962 on the opening day of the World’s Fair. With a past as cloudy as Seattle’s weather, Roger is the city’s “grand exalted dreamer,” the impossibly young father of the fair, the man who first drew the Space Needle on a cocktail napkin and then saw it rise in 407 days. Everything about him calls for exclamation points! He’s “the city’s good luck charm.” Hundreds of bells clang, thousands of balloons float to the sky, 35 countries join the extravaganza, and throngs of people begin arriving to behold “the world of tomorrow today!”
Roger is an indefatigable schmoozer, and like everybody in this novel, the author is a bit in love with him. I don’t blame him. He’s dashing and gracious, and never less than entirely candid, except to the fiancee he keeps stringing along. His actual position remains glamorously vague: “a midwife for good ideas.” He’s in charge of everything but not burdened by any particular job, which allows him to be all things to all people: developers, politicians, civic organizers, anybody who can help him put on “the most imaginative and spectacular show of our time!” Lynch notes that “he’s increasingly driven half-mad by the limitations of having only one life.” You can’t help but want a little of that zeal to rub off on you.
For most of us mortals, cities seem like such vast, chaotic structures that it’s hard to fathom how one man could exercise much influence. But highways go here or there, apartments rise this high or that high, shopping complexes thrive or die, and none of that happens by accident — or logic. Barely 30, Roger has made himself into an essential liaison among builders, financiers and unions. As the cameras flash at the opening ceremony of the fair, “it occurs to him that he still doesn’t know the full price of the deals he’s struck and the friends he’s made.” His affection for Seattle exceeds anyone’s cynicism about his motives, exceeds perhaps even his own wisdom. Sure, he’s flying too close to the sun, but what a spectacular view.
Although he grew up in Seattle, Lynch was born just a few months before the fair opened, so he brings no personal memories to the city’s seminal event. Nonetheless, he does a fantastic job of re-creating that explosion of civic boosterism, scientific mania and celebrity fawning. Walt Disney raves about this “jewel box” on the West Coast. And so do John Wayne, Roy Rogers, John Glenn and even Prince Philip, who can match Roger charm for charm. Vice President Lyndon Johnson makes a hilarious cameo, whining about his swollen groin. Elvis Presley, a thoughtful and respectful young man just 27 years old, drops by, too, and gives this novel its title. But Lynch reminds us that these are the weeks leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Tourists gliding along the shiny new monorail have reason to wonder whether the future isn’t about to end in a mushroom cloud.
In alternating chapters, the novel switches to 2001, another pre-apocalyptic moment in American history. Roger is now 70 and still just as likable and well-connected as ever. Fed up with the corruption and incivility of his city, he launches a shoestring campaign for mayor: “Vote for the old guy!” He just might win, but an enterprising young reporter from Capitol Hill’s Roll Call has joined the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (this is before it went online-only) and plans to make a name for herself with an exposé about Mr. Seattle.
These modern-day sections provide almost all the drama in the novel, but they’re nowhere near as artful as the 1962 chapters, which let the fair and Roger’s enthusiasm unspool so richly. Although Lynch worked as a journalist in Washington, D.C., and Washington state before turning to fiction, his portrayal of the Post-Intelligencer newsroom feels stale, a collection of the usual suspects borrowed from some TV dramedy about the economic and competitive pressures of modern journalism. (“The Imperfectionists,” that witty newspaper novel by Tom Rachman, transforms those types into marvelously quirky individuals.) The plucky young reporter determined to get to the truth about Roger’s background and maybe win a Pulitzer Prize has potential as a character, but Lynch doesn’t give himself enough room to let her breathe outside that worn archetype. At this length, at this speed, the complex issues he wants to explore about the responsibilities of journalists, the conflict between accuracy and fairness, the corrosive pressure to break news — all come across in primary colors. We need a dramatization of Janet Malcolm’s “The Journalist and the Murderer”; we get a breezy episode of “Lou Grant.”
Not that I didn’t love “Lou Grant” or enjoy this novel, which frames some of the problems of modern journalism with admirable clarity. When Roger mutters, “Life is a challenging and often inexplicable odyssey that doesn’t translate easily into newspaper stories,” he’s arrived at a painful truth about our business, which can slip so quickly from righteous to cruel. But Lynch’s beautifully drawn previous novels, “The Highest Tide” and “Border Songs,” suggest that maybe now he’s being pushed along too quickly by deadlines himself.
Still, in the nation’s second-most-literate city — sorry, Seattle, we’re No. 1 — “Truth Like the Sun” should quickly rise up the local bestseller list. In fact, any reader interested in the relationship between a town and its most enthusiastic participants will respond to this engaging story. But it’s not the literary monument it could have been.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/enterta...
September 12, 2024
So that’s the story behind the Seattle World’s Fair. Great use of flipping between past and future with chapters. A balanced dose of the good, the bad, the ugly. I will admit I was greatly disappointed when the book finished and I found out two main characters were completely imaginary.
October 12, 2013
Truth Like the Sun, a novel by Jim Lynch set entirely in Seattle and immersed in the local politics thereof, sat on my Amazon wish list* for well over a year, and I can't even remember who suggested it, nor the reasons why I put it there, but I was in the mood for something plotty and muscular last week, and it seemed to fit to bill. And for the first two-thirds or so, the gamble paid off! In telling the story of how Seattle grew up (or tried to), moving from frontier town to world-class destination, Lynch follows the career of the (fictional) "Mr. Seattle", Roger Morgan, who as a young man was the driving force behind the (real-life) 1962 Seattle World's Fair--a huge success financially, publicity-wise, and psychologically, allowing the city to make the leap into the "modern age"--and who, in 2001, decides finally to run for Mayor as the city teeters on the brink of... not ruin, exactly, but the dot.com bubble has definitely burst, and Morgan wants to save the city he loves and helped build.
The book jumps between the two eras in alternating chapters, and it holds together nicely for a good chunk of the time. Morgan is smart and charming, and we're definitely rooting for him even as Lynch slowly reveals his hero's seamier side. But just how scandalous are/were his actions? The more the story focussed on the answer to that question, the more my interest waned, in large measure because I didn't really believe the young woman who Lynch burdens with solving a bunch of not terribly interesting mysteries (on the level of: did Morgan unethically profit from some real estate deals 40 years ago????), an investigative reporter for the Seattle P&I named Helen Gulanos who's all over the place tonally and in her actions. And the interactions between the two leads are just ham-fisted and silly. On the level of bad TV movie. Oh well.
*Which, by the way, for Kindle users like me, provides the same function and what-should-I-read-next pleasure as my bookshelf at home used to, except now I don't have to actually pay money for anything until the exact moment I'm ready to start reading the next book. Just saying.
The book jumps between the two eras in alternating chapters, and it holds together nicely for a good chunk of the time. Morgan is smart and charming, and we're definitely rooting for him even as Lynch slowly reveals his hero's seamier side. But just how scandalous are/were his actions? The more the story focussed on the answer to that question, the more my interest waned, in large measure because I didn't really believe the young woman who Lynch burdens with solving a bunch of not terribly interesting mysteries (on the level of: did Morgan unethically profit from some real estate deals 40 years ago????), an investigative reporter for the Seattle P&I named Helen Gulanos who's all over the place tonally and in her actions. And the interactions between the two leads are just ham-fisted and silly. On the level of bad TV movie. Oh well.
*Which, by the way, for Kindle users like me, provides the same function and what-should-I-read-next pleasure as my bookshelf at home used to, except now I don't have to actually pay money for anything until the exact moment I'm ready to start reading the next book. Just saying.
January 4, 2016
A high 4. I plan to read another Jim Lynch based on this novel. A good read that adeptly juggles two timelines in the main character's life to shed light on contrasting American eras as well as stages of individual wisdom. Conceptually, it's very strong, and I found the intrigue around development, boosterism and crime entertaining in a PBS-meets-FX TV series sort of way.
But the young reporter who helped bring down the Father of the Seattle World's Fair 40 years later was really no match for Roger Morgan as a character.
But the young reporter who helped bring down the Father of the Seattle World's Fair 40 years later was really no match for Roger Morgan as a character.
April 30, 2012
well written, smart, but failed to really deliver. Author failed to get me excited enough about the mystery and its ultimate resolution. The chapters set in 2001 were consistently more interesting than the ones set in 1962, but the device of toggling back and forth between the recent past and the more distant past didn't really work for me.
January 14, 2015
I breathed in the descriptions of my "adult home town" Seattle and was refreshed by the drizzle. Jim Lynch has some interesting things to say about the role of dreamer politicians, the media's expose's on politicians and if we ever really know what "the truth" is exactly. I now have to go rent It Happened at the World's Fair with Elvis, if only to see what the fair looked like in it's glory!
April 15, 2012
As different as this book is from the author’s previous two books, in one way there is continuity: in his advocating that we expand the terrain of our vision to see what is around us; that we don’t get so caught up in the quotidian that we miss all the wonder and beauty and excitement around us every day. And does he ever make a case for the wonder, beauty, and excitement of Seattle!
On this fiftieth anniversary of the Seattle World’s Fair, Lynch has created a story about the fair’s construction and the main (fictional) visionary behind the scenes, Roger Morgan, age 30 at the time in 1962. Roger, an inspirational speaker, a “mover and a shaker”, a man of ideas, was “the most important guy to have on your side if you wanted to get any civic project off the ground….” And though he had relationships with many women, there was only one true love in his life, and that was Seattle.
The book starts in April, 1962, right before the opening of the fair: "This is when and where it begins, with all the dreamers champagne-drunk and stumbling on the head of the Needle.”
Roger Morgan, “the grand exalted dreamer himself,” is in his heyday, the world his oyster, full of pride in the Space Needle, the Fair, and for what it will do for the city he loves. And he does see it as only the beginning. His best friend Teddy chides him, saying “enough is never enough with you… You can’t get enough of anything,”:
"Roger rubs his cheeks and averts his eyes, wondering if it’s that obvious he’s increasingly driven half-mad by the limitations of having only one life. All the things he’ll never see or do or understand. All the people he’ll never know.”
This is one of the main themes of this book, that any one life does not provide enough time or opportunity. Roger wants to see it all, experience it all, do it all. There will be no passionless mediocrity of growing older for Roger. He is not afraid to let go of the present, and let the change he helps effect carry him in its stream. In fact he is not attached to things; it is his city, Seattle, that he wants to be the showcase of his dreams. With the iconic phallic-shaped Space Needle, he can say to the rest of the country: the New West is just as puissant, and perhaps even more so, since we are still in the process of becoming!
The book alternates between Roger in 1962 and Roger 39 years later, in April, 2001. Now 70, hampered by declining health and energy, watching his old friends die one by one with increasing frequency, he decides to make a “last hurrah” against his diminishing hour glass, and to run for mayor. Indeed, there are quite a few parallels between this and Edwin O’Connor’s classic work, “The Last Hurrah.” Ironically though, in the O’Connor book, it is the growing importance of TV ads for campaigning that so affects the outcome of the race, whereas in this story, it is the dying newspaper that makes a difference.
By 2001, Roger thought he had outrun time and truth, and was still electable. But he never counted on the arrival in Seattle of Helen Gulanos, a beautiful and ambitious reporter from the Midwest who gets a job with the Post-Intelligencer.
By the time Helen comes to Seattle, it is a different place than it was before the World’s Fair. Its very accomplishments annoy Helen:
"She’d never seen a city this full of itself. The most livable! The most literary! The best place to locate a business or raise or kid or have a dog or get cancer! The capital of the new world economy! And the locals swallowed all these national rankings and blather, even during this current dot-com hangover. Just look! they told her, as if the views alone justified the hype.”
Assigned to a back-page story about the upcoming fortieth anniversary of the fair, Helen feels nothing but resentment:
"…from what she could tell, the fair was an artifact of the corniest of American times and, worse yet, a local sacred cow with fawning coverage shamelessly regurgitated through the ten-, twenty- and thirty-year remembrances. By now it was a myth, and with that realization she felt a rebellious desire to expose the truth about the fair.”
She makes a bid with her bosses to spice up the Fair story with an exposé of the mayoral candidate Roger - the fabled idea-man of the Fair, contending that nobody could have done all he had done and not get dirty. And she wants to be the one to find his skeletons.
Roger, perhaps entranced a little by Helen’s beauty, and challenged by her refusal to appreciate Seattle, allows her too much access to him, and disaster ensues.
Discussion: Jim Lynch knows how to draw you in, charm you, and take you to places you never thought would be so interesting, much like his main character Roger. His optimism and enthusiasm are infectious up to the very last pages of the book, when Roger, in a Molly Bloom-esque soliloquy, imagines the promise ahead for the city. (“Yes, yes, yes!” he repeatedly cries.)
When Roger talks about “how the city dazzles him, how he can’t resist reading its history again and again, how sometimes he sees the whole city – past, present and future – all at once and how this almost overwhelms him”; when he describes his entrancement over the shimmering electric lights of the night skyline or what it’s like to see the sun drop over the Olympics in the early evening; when he conveys his excitement about all Seattle could accomplish, you can’t help visualizing it with him, and comparing his exuberant panegyrics to Woody Allen’s slow, dreamy, and artistic reveries of New York and Paris. What captivates Lynch, unlike that which inspires Allen, is movement, excitement, growth, change, a “brash metropolis surrounded by postcard summits and all that boat-loving water.” And Lynch's Baedeker guide to the streets and buildings and stores and restaurants make you want to take your book, go to Seattle, and look! Just look! at all he is teaching you to see.
Interestingly, as forthcoming as Roger is about his city, we don’t learn much about Roger himself. He is a charismatic man who knows everyone, but few people really know him. In fact, there is a rather poignant scene at one point in which Helen and a photographer go to his apartment, and Helen is astonished to see how little there is in it, and how unlike it is from the seemingly larger-than-life man who inhabits it.
One of the few ways we do get a glimpse into Roger’s nature is by his interactions with some of the many celebrities who flock to the Fair. They recognize the difference between the dignitaries who claim credit for the Fair and the man who actually made it happen. The inclusion of historical figures and invention of new ones also seemed to me to be part of the author’s meta-message about how easy it is to bend the truth, or to “line up a whole bunch of truths about anyone and still miss the ones that really matter.” As Roger tells Helen, “Most people barely know themselves…much less their wives and friends. And with strangers, we’re all guessing.” The newspaper stories that target Roger are particularly prone to these fallacies, as well as to the general problem of taking facts out of context.
As elusive as “truth” is, what is perceived as truth has remarkable staying power. Lynch uses an epigraph by Elvis Presley from whence comes the title of the book: “Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t going away.” The Janus-faced nature of “truth” is put into relief by setting it against the journalist’s craft, a juxtaposition that permeates the story. At the end, even we the readers don’t know the whole truth about Roger, but we also have learned that it is perceptions and innuendos that matter more anyway.
Evaluation: Jim Lynch is a talented and versatile writer who infuses the everyday with magic and then challenges you to do so yourself. With elegance and passion, he makes his landscapes come alive; they become as important as the characters who invariably love them. His characters strive to know all about where they are, and to see all there is with an open mind and an unjaded eye.
On this fiftieth anniversary of the Seattle World’s Fair, Lynch has created a story about the fair’s construction and the main (fictional) visionary behind the scenes, Roger Morgan, age 30 at the time in 1962. Roger, an inspirational speaker, a “mover and a shaker”, a man of ideas, was “the most important guy to have on your side if you wanted to get any civic project off the ground….” And though he had relationships with many women, there was only one true love in his life, and that was Seattle.
The book starts in April, 1962, right before the opening of the fair: "This is when and where it begins, with all the dreamers champagne-drunk and stumbling on the head of the Needle.”
Roger Morgan, “the grand exalted dreamer himself,” is in his heyday, the world his oyster, full of pride in the Space Needle, the Fair, and for what it will do for the city he loves. And he does see it as only the beginning. His best friend Teddy chides him, saying “enough is never enough with you… You can’t get enough of anything,”:
"Roger rubs his cheeks and averts his eyes, wondering if it’s that obvious he’s increasingly driven half-mad by the limitations of having only one life. All the things he’ll never see or do or understand. All the people he’ll never know.”
This is one of the main themes of this book, that any one life does not provide enough time or opportunity. Roger wants to see it all, experience it all, do it all. There will be no passionless mediocrity of growing older for Roger. He is not afraid to let go of the present, and let the change he helps effect carry him in its stream. In fact he is not attached to things; it is his city, Seattle, that he wants to be the showcase of his dreams. With the iconic phallic-shaped Space Needle, he can say to the rest of the country: the New West is just as puissant, and perhaps even more so, since we are still in the process of becoming!
The book alternates between Roger in 1962 and Roger 39 years later, in April, 2001. Now 70, hampered by declining health and energy, watching his old friends die one by one with increasing frequency, he decides to make a “last hurrah” against his diminishing hour glass, and to run for mayor. Indeed, there are quite a few parallels between this and Edwin O’Connor’s classic work, “The Last Hurrah.” Ironically though, in the O’Connor book, it is the growing importance of TV ads for campaigning that so affects the outcome of the race, whereas in this story, it is the dying newspaper that makes a difference.
By 2001, Roger thought he had outrun time and truth, and was still electable. But he never counted on the arrival in Seattle of Helen Gulanos, a beautiful and ambitious reporter from the Midwest who gets a job with the Post-Intelligencer.
By the time Helen comes to Seattle, it is a different place than it was before the World’s Fair. Its very accomplishments annoy Helen:
"She’d never seen a city this full of itself. The most livable! The most literary! The best place to locate a business or raise or kid or have a dog or get cancer! The capital of the new world economy! And the locals swallowed all these national rankings and blather, even during this current dot-com hangover. Just look! they told her, as if the views alone justified the hype.”
Assigned to a back-page story about the upcoming fortieth anniversary of the fair, Helen feels nothing but resentment:
"…from what she could tell, the fair was an artifact of the corniest of American times and, worse yet, a local sacred cow with fawning coverage shamelessly regurgitated through the ten-, twenty- and thirty-year remembrances. By now it was a myth, and with that realization she felt a rebellious desire to expose the truth about the fair.”
She makes a bid with her bosses to spice up the Fair story with an exposé of the mayoral candidate Roger - the fabled idea-man of the Fair, contending that nobody could have done all he had done and not get dirty. And she wants to be the one to find his skeletons.
Roger, perhaps entranced a little by Helen’s beauty, and challenged by her refusal to appreciate Seattle, allows her too much access to him, and disaster ensues.
Discussion: Jim Lynch knows how to draw you in, charm you, and take you to places you never thought would be so interesting, much like his main character Roger. His optimism and enthusiasm are infectious up to the very last pages of the book, when Roger, in a Molly Bloom-esque soliloquy, imagines the promise ahead for the city. (“Yes, yes, yes!” he repeatedly cries.)
When Roger talks about “how the city dazzles him, how he can’t resist reading its history again and again, how sometimes he sees the whole city – past, present and future – all at once and how this almost overwhelms him”; when he describes his entrancement over the shimmering electric lights of the night skyline or what it’s like to see the sun drop over the Olympics in the early evening; when he conveys his excitement about all Seattle could accomplish, you can’t help visualizing it with him, and comparing his exuberant panegyrics to Woody Allen’s slow, dreamy, and artistic reveries of New York and Paris. What captivates Lynch, unlike that which inspires Allen, is movement, excitement, growth, change, a “brash metropolis surrounded by postcard summits and all that boat-loving water.” And Lynch's Baedeker guide to the streets and buildings and stores and restaurants make you want to take your book, go to Seattle, and look! Just look! at all he is teaching you to see.
Interestingly, as forthcoming as Roger is about his city, we don’t learn much about Roger himself. He is a charismatic man who knows everyone, but few people really know him. In fact, there is a rather poignant scene at one point in which Helen and a photographer go to his apartment, and Helen is astonished to see how little there is in it, and how unlike it is from the seemingly larger-than-life man who inhabits it.
One of the few ways we do get a glimpse into Roger’s nature is by his interactions with some of the many celebrities who flock to the Fair. They recognize the difference between the dignitaries who claim credit for the Fair and the man who actually made it happen. The inclusion of historical figures and invention of new ones also seemed to me to be part of the author’s meta-message about how easy it is to bend the truth, or to “line up a whole bunch of truths about anyone and still miss the ones that really matter.” As Roger tells Helen, “Most people barely know themselves…much less their wives and friends. And with strangers, we’re all guessing.” The newspaper stories that target Roger are particularly prone to these fallacies, as well as to the general problem of taking facts out of context.
As elusive as “truth” is, what is perceived as truth has remarkable staying power. Lynch uses an epigraph by Elvis Presley from whence comes the title of the book: “Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t going away.” The Janus-faced nature of “truth” is put into relief by setting it against the journalist’s craft, a juxtaposition that permeates the story. At the end, even we the readers don’t know the whole truth about Roger, but we also have learned that it is perceptions and innuendos that matter more anyway.
Evaluation: Jim Lynch is a talented and versatile writer who infuses the everyday with magic and then challenges you to do so yourself. With elegance and passion, he makes his landscapes come alive; they become as important as the characters who invariably love them. His characters strive to know all about where they are, and to see all there is with an open mind and an unjaded eye.
April 20, 2025
This was more like a 3.5- overall great read. Set in a city I really enjoy so learning about this period of history of Seattle was extra fun for me.
Another reader mentioned they wondered if the book had marinated a little longer before publishing if it’d have been a smidge more deep and more smoothly make its point. I tend to agree with that. It was really close to being great but landed just a little short.
Enjoyed the setting, the history, intriguing plot line that kept you reading and wanting to get to the end to see how it would all culminate. Characters could have had a smidge more depth and complexity.
If you enjoy Seattle this should definitely be on your list!
Another reader mentioned they wondered if the book had marinated a little longer before publishing if it’d have been a smidge more deep and more smoothly make its point. I tend to agree with that. It was really close to being great but landed just a little short.
Enjoyed the setting, the history, intriguing plot line that kept you reading and wanting to get to the end to see how it would all culminate. Characters could have had a smidge more depth and complexity.
If you enjoy Seattle this should definitely be on your list!
June 11, 2017
A really solid book, thoroughly researched and beautifully staged to get to the soul of a changing city. The historical tidbits are mesmerizing (only one howler about Edward R Murrow, who was raised in Washington) and the main character is infectiously likable. Other Seattle ghosts (Marty Selig, Gov. Rosselini, Edith Macefield) pop up with pseudonyms and photographic rendition. I'm still undecided on whether this is an excellent book all around or whether its an excellent book for Seattlites. The whole book is worth it just for the Elvis scene by itself, and there are many more gems inside.
January 9, 2025
Truth Like the Sun is a lovely glimpse into the grand, but also seedy history of Seattle. As someone who has had the experience first-hand of exploring the original structures built for the fair (marveling at the Space Needle, sitting by the International Fountain, enjoying the short monorail journey), learning a little more about the atmosphere surrounding their original construction was fascinating. I also really appreciated Helen's experience of the city as a total newcomer, since this is the way in which I explored the city too. Jim Lynch's writing is excellent, fun to read, and I'm looking forward to re-experiencing these monuments with this new perspective in mind.
January 4, 2019
What a mesmerizing story all the way until the end. While parts of this were fiction I was still pulled into the history of this green city I just moved to. I've loved Seattle for a long time, but this story and the history of the World's Fair has made it just as alive to me now more than ever.
April 22, 2012
Although I grew up all over the South, my father's mother and her second husband moved to Seattle when I was in the third grade - 1970/1971 or thereabouts. I visited every summer - sometimes for two weeks, sometimes for a month, and once for the entire summer. When I was in college I visited them at Thanksgiving - I lived in New Mexico and couldn't go home at Thanksgiving and Christmas both so my grandmother claimed Thanksgiving as her own.
As an adult I moved to Seattle in 1991 and lived there for ten years. My son was born there. I got divorced there. I met my current husband there (a Seattle native - very rar). I got endlessly rained on, spent most of those ten years with wet feet and clothes, and for the most part I had lots of good times there. I miss it until we visit, re-experience the traffic nightmare (just horrible due to geographic constraints - it makes its way out onto surface streets like black mold), get rained on, and remember why we moved. Still, I love the city and would live there again.
I have very fond memories of Seattle as a child. The Seattle Center, the location of the World's Fair, was a great place to be as a kid - The Space Needle, all the events that happened all over as part of Seafair. As an adult I was drawn to Bumbershoot and Folklife (before they became the insanity of today). I have danced in fountain there as often as I possibly could my entire life. These memories made it fun to read Jim Lynch's Truth Like the Sun just in time for the 50th anniversary of the Space Needle.
Seattle now bears little resemblance to the Seattle of my memory. Honestly the nineties were the beginning of the end. We got out as it became more and more clear that yuppies were welcome, the city had been bought by the developers, and all us old-school Seattleites were no longer welcome. All my favorite dive bars closed and that was the end.
Mr. Lynch deftly catches the different spirits and feelings of the city at different times along with the differences in politics. Exploring the city through the eyes of Ray Morgan, the fair's mastermind, and Helen Gulanos, a Seattle new-comer. Ray, still on the scene and in his seventies, hopes for a last hurrah and runs for mayor. Helen, new to the scene and puzzled by Seattle's glossy finish, hopes for a Pulitzer and eyes a 40-year-old scandal involving Ray as her key to the prize. Book-ended by crises - the Cuban Missile Crisis and 9/11 - all the uncertainties inherent in living in changing times are seen here. In addition there is the simple celebration of the beauty of the city and its environs - sun setting over the Olympics, playing in the wading pool at Volunteer Park, coming into the city on the ferry at night and seeing it light up along the Puget Sound - these things make Seattle special.
Rich in detail, well-written, satirical, and clever, Truth Like the Sun captures the best and the worst about Seattle and its politics. And now I'm thoroughly homesick.
As an adult I moved to Seattle in 1991 and lived there for ten years. My son was born there. I got divorced there. I met my current husband there (a Seattle native - very rar). I got endlessly rained on, spent most of those ten years with wet feet and clothes, and for the most part I had lots of good times there. I miss it until we visit, re-experience the traffic nightmare (just horrible due to geographic constraints - it makes its way out onto surface streets like black mold), get rained on, and remember why we moved. Still, I love the city and would live there again.
I have very fond memories of Seattle as a child. The Seattle Center, the location of the World's Fair, was a great place to be as a kid - The Space Needle, all the events that happened all over as part of Seafair. As an adult I was drawn to Bumbershoot and Folklife (before they became the insanity of today). I have danced in fountain there as often as I possibly could my entire life. These memories made it fun to read Jim Lynch's Truth Like the Sun just in time for the 50th anniversary of the Space Needle.
Seattle now bears little resemblance to the Seattle of my memory. Honestly the nineties were the beginning of the end. We got out as it became more and more clear that yuppies were welcome, the city had been bought by the developers, and all us old-school Seattleites were no longer welcome. All my favorite dive bars closed and that was the end.
Mr. Lynch deftly catches the different spirits and feelings of the city at different times along with the differences in politics. Exploring the city through the eyes of Ray Morgan, the fair's mastermind, and Helen Gulanos, a Seattle new-comer. Ray, still on the scene and in his seventies, hopes for a last hurrah and runs for mayor. Helen, new to the scene and puzzled by Seattle's glossy finish, hopes for a Pulitzer and eyes a 40-year-old scandal involving Ray as her key to the prize. Book-ended by crises - the Cuban Missile Crisis and 9/11 - all the uncertainties inherent in living in changing times are seen here. In addition there is the simple celebration of the beauty of the city and its environs - sun setting over the Olympics, playing in the wading pool at Volunteer Park, coming into the city on the ferry at night and seeing it light up along the Puget Sound - these things make Seattle special.
Rich in detail, well-written, satirical, and clever, Truth Like the Sun captures the best and the worst about Seattle and its politics. And now I'm thoroughly homesick.
March 11, 2013
A book about Seattle with "sun" in the title? That kind of threw me. But once I got over it I thought the book was a good read and a very sophisticated piece of story telling that explores the question of, "What is truth?" And, "Can we ever really know what a person is like based on an investigation of their past?" Or, "Is it possible to characterize a city in a couple of hundred pages of prose.
Jim Lynch seems to be quickly establishing himself as a regional writer with a book set on the tide pools of Olympia (The Highest Tide), along the Canadian/Washington border (Bordersongs) and now, Seattle, with "Truth Like the Sun", the title, interestingly enough, taken from an Elvis quote which Mr. Lynch made up.
The story alternates between 1962, the year of the Seattle World's Fair, and 2001, the year our protagonist Roger Morgan, the fictional wunderkind who launched and managed the Fair, and his 2001 version, now seventy years old, who decides to run for mayor. Roger is, by general agreement, Mr. Seattle, and the mystery is why he has waited so long to seek public office. A new reporter in town, who in a recent local book reading Mr. Lynch suggested was based on himself, begins to investigate and in a sustained burst of Pulltzer-like zeal begins to link Roger to long forgotten police and political corruption which entertained Seattle in the sixties and seventies.
There is no doubt that the Seattle World's Fair changed Seattle, focused world-wide attention on it and attracted many immigrants which changed it from the self-satisfied provincial city it was before 1962. Those of us who predate the Fair and who lived near Seattle but were not Seattlites can attest that Seattle had an attitude of smugness and superiority. The first families of Seattle ran everything and held forth at the Rainier Club, SAC, Broadmore and The Highlands. The Fair was the historical demarcation line. In the history of Seattle it was "before the fair" and "after the fair." Before the Fair it was Sea-First, Safeco, Fisher Flour Mills, Nordstrom, The Huskies, Boeing and Pacific Car and Foundry. After the Fair it was Microsoft, Amazon, and major league sports.
The fairgrounds still sit there like an archeological artifact. And just about anyone who has lived in the area since 1955 has a story to tell about the Fair. Plus, Elvis came and made a movie.
So, the Fair makes a lively character in this book which, in reality, is a study about journalism and whether or not a reporter can be fair to a character who has lived a full and complicated life. Like Elvis said, and I paraphrase: truth is like the sun. It comes out once in awhile.
Nice job by Mr. Lynch which makes me wonder if I didn't give Bordersongs (which I didn't finish) short shrift. I will have to revisit. With regard to Truth Like the Sun, it was an interesting writing challenge, I think, to write a character as a thirty year old and then as a seventy year old. Overall, I liked his seventy year old self better.
Jim Lynch seems to be quickly establishing himself as a regional writer with a book set on the tide pools of Olympia (The Highest Tide), along the Canadian/Washington border (Bordersongs) and now, Seattle, with "Truth Like the Sun", the title, interestingly enough, taken from an Elvis quote which Mr. Lynch made up.
The story alternates between 1962, the year of the Seattle World's Fair, and 2001, the year our protagonist Roger Morgan, the fictional wunderkind who launched and managed the Fair, and his 2001 version, now seventy years old, who decides to run for mayor. Roger is, by general agreement, Mr. Seattle, and the mystery is why he has waited so long to seek public office. A new reporter in town, who in a recent local book reading Mr. Lynch suggested was based on himself, begins to investigate and in a sustained burst of Pulltzer-like zeal begins to link Roger to long forgotten police and political corruption which entertained Seattle in the sixties and seventies.
There is no doubt that the Seattle World's Fair changed Seattle, focused world-wide attention on it and attracted many immigrants which changed it from the self-satisfied provincial city it was before 1962. Those of us who predate the Fair and who lived near Seattle but were not Seattlites can attest that Seattle had an attitude of smugness and superiority. The first families of Seattle ran everything and held forth at the Rainier Club, SAC, Broadmore and The Highlands. The Fair was the historical demarcation line. In the history of Seattle it was "before the fair" and "after the fair." Before the Fair it was Sea-First, Safeco, Fisher Flour Mills, Nordstrom, The Huskies, Boeing and Pacific Car and Foundry. After the Fair it was Microsoft, Amazon, and major league sports.
The fairgrounds still sit there like an archeological artifact. And just about anyone who has lived in the area since 1955 has a story to tell about the Fair. Plus, Elvis came and made a movie.
So, the Fair makes a lively character in this book which, in reality, is a study about journalism and whether or not a reporter can be fair to a character who has lived a full and complicated life. Like Elvis said, and I paraphrase: truth is like the sun. It comes out once in awhile.
Nice job by Mr. Lynch which makes me wonder if I didn't give Bordersongs (which I didn't finish) short shrift. I will have to revisit. With regard to Truth Like the Sun, it was an interesting writing challenge, I think, to write a character as a thirty year old and then as a seventy year old. Overall, I liked his seventy year old self better.
January 16, 2013
"I don't have a plan," Elvis volunteers. "I just have a feel. Trying to get a better understanding of myself. The mistakes I make always come back around. Truth is like the sun, isn't it? You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't going away." (148)
Spoiler alert: As convincing as that professional in the above meme seems, Seattle’s Space Needle was constructed as part of the 1962 World Fair.
This fictional story incorporates elements of non-fiction in its retelling of the events that surrounded the finance and funding that supported the creation of the Fair. The novel’s narrative bounces between two time periods from the past - 1962 and 2001. In 1962, we see Roger Morgan, the fictional idea-man behind the Space Needle, as a young man navigating through the stress of hosting a world event. He courts celebrities and politicians of that time including the likes of Lyndon Johnson, Johnny Carson and the King himself, Elvis Presley, promoting the beauty and promise of the still-blossoming city of Seattle. In 2001, we find Helen Gulanos, a reporter charged with writing a series on the fortieth anniversary of the World Fair, who becomes entangled in the Mayoral election when Roger Morgan announces his candidacy. Now seventy years old, Roger is still as enthusiastic about the prospects of Seattle as he was when he was a youth. Helen, however, starts to dig through his past, exposing the skeletons of Roger’s past to the harsh truth of the sun.
While I liked this book, I was disappointed by the ending. I was disappointed by Helen. I really, really, really liked Roger. I’m not going to spoil anything here because it is worth a good, thorough reading. The writing, alone, is outstanding. There were a number of questions that remain unanswered. The one that is driving me up the wall is – how did Helen acquire that heinous scar on her neck, damnit? (Her ex-husband and baby-daddy? A previous writing assignment? GAH!) Beyond that, I may venture too close to spoiler territory, so I’m going to bit my (chapped) lips. I wanted more of Helen’s back story to compliment the detail that was given to Roger’s past. The ending was abrupt, and I was saddened.
The biggest lesson to be learned here (and in books like The Casual Vacancy) is NEVER, EVER RUN FOR PUBLIC OFFICE. It cannot end well. I know I will never open myself up to relentless public scrutiny. It makes me really appreciate the courage and strength of those individuals *cough Barack Obama cough* that can rise above the criticism and maintain personal dignity despite ugly rumors generated by nay-sayers and opposing political parties. Reporters are no joke. Publicity (especially negative) can be stifling. And as Elvis says in the story, truth like the sun ain’t going away. Mistakes will come to light. Tread very lightly.
Spoiler alert: As convincing as that professional in the above meme seems, Seattle’s Space Needle was constructed as part of the 1962 World Fair.
This fictional story incorporates elements of non-fiction in its retelling of the events that surrounded the finance and funding that supported the creation of the Fair. The novel’s narrative bounces between two time periods from the past - 1962 and 2001. In 1962, we see Roger Morgan, the fictional idea-man behind the Space Needle, as a young man navigating through the stress of hosting a world event. He courts celebrities and politicians of that time including the likes of Lyndon Johnson, Johnny Carson and the King himself, Elvis Presley, promoting the beauty and promise of the still-blossoming city of Seattle. In 2001, we find Helen Gulanos, a reporter charged with writing a series on the fortieth anniversary of the World Fair, who becomes entangled in the Mayoral election when Roger Morgan announces his candidacy. Now seventy years old, Roger is still as enthusiastic about the prospects of Seattle as he was when he was a youth. Helen, however, starts to dig through his past, exposing the skeletons of Roger’s past to the harsh truth of the sun.
While I liked this book, I was disappointed by the ending. I was disappointed by Helen. I really, really, really liked Roger. I’m not going to spoil anything here because it is worth a good, thorough reading. The writing, alone, is outstanding. There were a number of questions that remain unanswered. The one that is driving me up the wall is – how did Helen acquire that heinous scar on her neck, damnit? (Her ex-husband and baby-daddy? A previous writing assignment? GAH!) Beyond that, I may venture too close to spoiler territory, so I’m going to bit my (chapped) lips. I wanted more of Helen’s back story to compliment the detail that was given to Roger’s past. The ending was abrupt, and I was saddened.
The biggest lesson to be learned here (and in books like The Casual Vacancy) is NEVER, EVER RUN FOR PUBLIC OFFICE. It cannot end well. I know I will never open myself up to relentless public scrutiny. It makes me really appreciate the courage and strength of those individuals *cough Barack Obama cough* that can rise above the criticism and maintain personal dignity despite ugly rumors generated by nay-sayers and opposing political parties. Reporters are no joke. Publicity (especially negative) can be stifling. And as Elvis says in the story, truth like the sun ain’t going away. Mistakes will come to light. Tread very lightly.
November 5, 2015
What an absolutely great book by one of my favorite modern writers. Jim Lynch has done it again with this tale of modern day Seattle, while blending in the 1962 Seattle Worlds Fair, as the starting point for Seattle of today. Chapters in the book switch back and forth between 1962 and 2001, as Lynch blends the story of a 70-year old politico who decides to run for mayor after a suicide jumper is egged on to jump by a frustrated driver stuck in traffic due to the potential jumper. We then switch back in time when the politico was the head (as well as the face) of the Seattle Worlds Fair. And into the fray jumps a newly arrived journalist who researches into Seattle's corrupt past and who tries to tie in this mayoral candidate to a 1962 Grand Jury inquest.
Just a wonderful way the blend these incidents into a cohesive and fun to read book, While I was pulling for mayoral candidate, Roger, throughout the book, you can easily side with the reporter, the newspaper as it tries to expose the truth, as well as all the others who are being swamped by innuendo and partial truths. One of my favorite parts of the book came when Roger gave the journalist his version of her life story and she was appalled by his implications and innuendos, to which Roger turned it right back on her and said that she was doing the same thing to him.
Really a fine effort and let me also recommend Tim Egan's book, Breaking Blue, about another State of Washington corruption books. Both are really well written and deal with completely different events, but the tie with official and police corruption is startling and amazing.
I had the opportunity to speak with one of Lynch's publishers a few years back and he was amazed that someone from South Carolina would be reading and loving Lynch's work. I told him that to me it was a no-brainer, in that here was an author who could tell a great story no matter where the setting and since I have not spent a lot of time in the Pacific Northwest I loved his use of that setting in his novels, I guess I have gushed enough about Lynch, but if you have never had a chance to read his works it is worth your while to do so and this short (259 page) book is a great place to start!
Just a wonderful way the blend these incidents into a cohesive and fun to read book, While I was pulling for mayoral candidate, Roger, throughout the book, you can easily side with the reporter, the newspaper as it tries to expose the truth, as well as all the others who are being swamped by innuendo and partial truths. One of my favorite parts of the book came when Roger gave the journalist his version of her life story and she was appalled by his implications and innuendos, to which Roger turned it right back on her and said that she was doing the same thing to him.
Really a fine effort and let me also recommend Tim Egan's book, Breaking Blue, about another State of Washington corruption books. Both are really well written and deal with completely different events, but the tie with official and police corruption is startling and amazing.
I had the opportunity to speak with one of Lynch's publishers a few years back and he was amazed that someone from South Carolina would be reading and loving Lynch's work. I told him that to me it was a no-brainer, in that here was an author who could tell a great story no matter where the setting and since I have not spent a lot of time in the Pacific Northwest I loved his use of that setting in his novels, I guess I have gushed enough about Lynch, but if you have never had a chance to read his works it is worth your while to do so and this short (259 page) book is a great place to start!
May 27, 2012
This novel alternates chapters between the 1962 World's Fair and 39 years later when the "founder" of the fair, a fictitious character, runs for mayor of Seattle. The best of the book is the nostalgic story of the World's fair with a deft balance between the novel's fictional characters and the real events and real people from the time. The descriptions of Lyndon Johnson, Ed Sullivan and Elvis Presley visiting the fair are just great.
The weakness is the plot; a young woman reporter who has just moved to work at the Seattle P-I is assigned to cover Roger Morris's 2001 campaign for mayor and focuses on uncovering his past and possible corruption. The plot didn't make a lot of sense to me, it felt a bit stilted, but there were some great scenes including the reporter's interviews of Morris and the newsroom intrigue of editing and deadlines and journalism objectivity.
A favorite part of the book was speculating on whether the minor characters were based on real people. The ambitious US Attorney could easily be Brock Adams who was the real US Attorney at the time and like the book's character was elected to Congress in 1964. The book's governor has many similarities to then Governor Al Rosellini including an Italian surname, same campaigning style and reemergence 40 years later connected with gambling and topless dancing interests. The crusty reporter, Bill Steele, could be part Shelby Scates or Mike Layton with a little Emmett Watson. The developer shares some history with Martin Selig. It would be intriguing to have someone with a more thorough knowledge of Seattle history write a review on the possible inspirations for the plot of the book
The weakness is the plot; a young woman reporter who has just moved to work at the Seattle P-I is assigned to cover Roger Morris's 2001 campaign for mayor and focuses on uncovering his past and possible corruption. The plot didn't make a lot of sense to me, it felt a bit stilted, but there were some great scenes including the reporter's interviews of Morris and the newsroom intrigue of editing and deadlines and journalism objectivity.
A favorite part of the book was speculating on whether the minor characters were based on real people. The ambitious US Attorney could easily be Brock Adams who was the real US Attorney at the time and like the book's character was elected to Congress in 1964. The book's governor has many similarities to then Governor Al Rosellini including an Italian surname, same campaigning style and reemergence 40 years later connected with gambling and topless dancing interests. The crusty reporter, Bill Steele, could be part Shelby Scates or Mike Layton with a little Emmett Watson. The developer shares some history with Martin Selig. It would be intriguing to have someone with a more thorough knowledge of Seattle history write a review on the possible inspirations for the plot of the book
July 4, 2014
In Jim Lynch's Truth Like the Sun, a rising star politician finds that his political future may hinge on both the investigative prowess and the ethical integrity of a muckraker newspaper reporter. It is a story of graft and corruption, political ambition, and personal integrity.
It is also a story about Seattle. The story flashes back and forth between the 1962 Seattle World's Fair and the present-day Seattle mayoral election. In some ways, Seattle is as much of a character in the book as the people are, with the author providing colorful details about the fair as well as many present-day Seattle locations.
However, as much as I like Seattle, I somehow never connected with this book. It is as though Lynch attempted to embed some personality into his characters, but he never quite succeeded. In the end, I didn't really care who won the election, or if the reporter got her big scoop or not. And we all know how Seattle turns out - the World's Fair was a big success, and Seattle goes on to become a second-tier metropolis known in equal parts for traffic gridlock, liberal politics, fabulous natural beauty, and drippy weather.
Are there readers out there that are so in love with Seattle that they can't get enough? If so, then perhaps Truth Like the Sun would appeal to them. Or, perhaps it would appeal to someone from the midwest, for whom Seattle is an exotic and interesting location.
But for me, I found Truth Like the Sun to be worthy of a big yawn.
It is also a story about Seattle. The story flashes back and forth between the 1962 Seattle World's Fair and the present-day Seattle mayoral election. In some ways, Seattle is as much of a character in the book as the people are, with the author providing colorful details about the fair as well as many present-day Seattle locations.
However, as much as I like Seattle, I somehow never connected with this book. It is as though Lynch attempted to embed some personality into his characters, but he never quite succeeded. In the end, I didn't really care who won the election, or if the reporter got her big scoop or not. And we all know how Seattle turns out - the World's Fair was a big success, and Seattle goes on to become a second-tier metropolis known in equal parts for traffic gridlock, liberal politics, fabulous natural beauty, and drippy weather.
Are there readers out there that are so in love with Seattle that they can't get enough? If so, then perhaps Truth Like the Sun would appeal to them. Or, perhaps it would appeal to someone from the midwest, for whom Seattle is an exotic and interesting location.
But for me, I found Truth Like the Sun to be worthy of a big yawn.
May 6, 2012
I thought this was an average book, but must admit that my opinion is influenced by the fact that the book I read just before this one, Mountains of the Moon (I. J. Kay), was one of the best books I have read in a long time. Its inventive use of language left Lynch's writing feeling flat to me. I know a book reviewer shouldn't base his review of a book on his feelings about another book, but I am a reader - not a reviewer - and I feel that part of this community is to share feelings about books, and this has been my impression of Lynch's writing. Lynch's characters seemed too neatly drawn; even their skeletons seems too tidy, and none of them really came alive for me. If you are interesting in reading a (fictional) account of Seattle during the World Fair of '62, you will find this book fascinating (as I did). However, if you are looking for a book to resonate with you, I doubt this will be it. Perhaps this is unfair to say, but after reading "Truth Like the Sun," I would be loath to pick up another book by this author.
November 27, 2012
I'll admit that I wasn't sucked in at first. The set-up between past and present and the two viewpoints seemed tenuous. The reporter character Helen Gulanos never really struck me as that true, more of a character created to serve a purpose. However I'd enjoyed The Highest Tide and the book was a gift (thank you again Venetia) so I kept reading. And got totally sucked in. Roger is a great character. His past and present got me caught up and fascinated by the backstory of the 1962 World's Fair. With his power the book took on life. Then I really came to attention on page 160. Roger asks Helen about a scar. Having written a book with the mother of a woman nearly killed in a similar incident to the one described in the novel, which is well-known locally, I was hit close to home. Along with a reference in the same paragraph to Medusa. I must have had the same sense of discovery as those GeoCache folks. I wanted to talk to Jim Lynch right away. Anyway the story was ultimately a fascinating account of Seattle history, an excellent character study and a surprising and satisfying work.
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