Literary Award Winners Fiction Book Club discussion

Please comment here on 'Advise and Consent' by Allen Drury, (1960 Pulitzer Prize for fiction winner).

This took me a week to read. I did enjoy it. it felt a bit nostalgic. Was there ever a time when political officials worked across the aisle, voted their conscience rather than obediently following in lock step their party leader, called the person in the Oval Office Mr. President despite differences (not Crooked Joe), could be devistated by personal moral failings? It seems hard to believe that such a time ever existed in Washington.

This book took me more than a week to read, but I also enjoyed it. I found the first half of the novel a little slow going. The second half of the novel is quite dramatic.

An interesting, overly long historical fiction novel about politicians in Washington DC, during the 1950s. The President decides to nominate Mr Leffingwell as new Secretary of State and seeks Senate confirmation. A persuasive old senator in Orrin Knox opposes the nomination. A background check on Mr Leffingwell suggests he might not be the appropriate person for the job. Things become complicated when the senator from Utah calls for a senate hearing in view of certain new information that he has received and which no one else is privy to.

A well plotted story with a couple of dramatic moments and interesting characters. Whilst probably very realistic, the dialogue between the various parties is a little dull in places. The character sketches are well done, particularly the main characters of Bob Munston, Sean Cooley, Brigham Anderson and Orrin Knox. A very male dominated book.

Hi George, This was a very U.S. A. book. Some sense of how U.S. politics functions seemed essential to this novel. How did it read from the perspective of someone outside the U.S.?

Yes, you are right, having some understanding of US politics would give the reader a greater appreciation of the book.

I am very familiar with the US political scene and have been taking a greater interest since the 6th of January 2021.

The Australian Federal government, when it was established in 1901, followed the US with a House of Representatives and a Senate where each Australian state is represented by an equal number of senators, 12 senators represent each of the six states, elected for a period of 6 years. We did not adopt the ‘President’ role, with the
Prime Minister being a member of the House of Representatives and a member of either the Liberal (more conservative) or Labour Party, (originally representing the working class).

Although the mechanics of a cabinet confirmation process has not changed in the past 70 years, the calculations of the political figures and the tone of the process is dramatically different than depicted in this novel.