Book Review: The Burning of the White House: James and Dolley Madison And The War of 1812 by Jane Hampton Cook

Posted on July 4, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Despite being a huge history nerd, I did not watch a single episode of Showtime’s recent miniseries, The First Lady. That’s largely because I think Showtime made a mistake with the three first ladies that they chose to profile.

Eleanor Roosevelt? Everyone knows that Alice was far more interesting.

Betty Ford? Look, I think Gerald Ford was a great and underrated President and I think the country would have been better off if he had defeated Jimmy Carter in 1976. But we all know that Alice Roosevelt is the Republican First Lady who deserves a miniseries.

Michelle Obama? It’s going to be another few years or so before we can even begin to seriously discuss whether or not the Obamas were successful in the White House. Meanwhile, the legacy of Alice Roosevelt is right there.

Personally, assuming that there wasn’t a show about Alice Roosevelt airing at the time, I would rather watch a miniseries about Dolley Madison, who served as America’s First Lady from 1809 to 1817. Madison was the fourth First Lady but she was the first to play an important role in her husband’s success. Indeed, James Madison was said to be such an introvert that it’s doubtful he would have ever been nominated for or elected President if not for Dolley’s outgoing personality. Along with furnishing The White House and making it into a proper residence for the head of the executive branch, Dolley also started the tradition of White House receptions and by inviting not only Madison’s allies but also his rivals, it can truly be said that Dolley Madison was the first person to promote bipartisanship in Washington. Dolley was even the first American to ever receive a telegraph message and then send a response. Apparently, before Dolley showed up, people would just read their messages and then toss them to the side.

James Madison was also President during the War of 1812. Now technically, The War of 1812 was not America’s finest moment. While the British were hardly innocent when it came to the diplomatic tensions between the two countries, the war largely escalated due to the fact that certain Americans had convinced themselves that Canada was eager to both be liberated from British rule and to become a part of the United States. Indeed, the long tradition of the U.S. invading other countries for their own good began with the 1813 invasion of Canada. In 1814, the British responded by sacking Washington D.C. and burning down the White House. It was Dolley who made sure that the famous portrait of George Washington was removed from the White House wall before the building was set on fire.

That Dolley survived the burning of the White House served as a rallyingcry for the U.S. forces and what should have been a blow to morale instead only inspired the Americans to fight harder. And while one can argue that the war was largely America’s fault, one can also acknowledge that the world was ultimately better off as a result of America’s victory in the War of the 1812. The British gave up any hopes of reclaiming America and America was finally forced to accept that Canada didn’t necessarily want to be a part of the United States.

In fact, if anyone deserves to have a film made about her, it’s Dolley Madison. Kate Winslet would be brilliant as Dolley Madison. Get Sofia Coppola to direct it. It’ll be great!

And I would suggest basing the film on a book called The Burning of the White House: James and Dolley Madison and the War of 1812. Well-researched, well-written, and well-paced, this book was written by Jane Hampton Cook and it works as not just a history of the War of 1812 but also as a tribute to the legacy of Dolley Madison. If you’re into history like I am, this is definitely a book that you should be reading. It’s so informative and engaging that you really don’t need a movie to appreciate Dolley and James.

Still, someone really should make that movie….

Book Review: Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis

Posted on July 3, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After having watched the film version a few hundred times, I figured that it was time for me to sit down and actually read Bret Easton Ellis’s Less Than Zero.

First published in 1985 (and written when Ellis was only 19 years old and still a college student), Less Than Zero tells the story Clay. Clay is a rich college student who returns home to Los Angeles for winter break. It’s his first time to be back home since starting college and he quickly discovers that all of his old friends are, for the most part, hooked on drugs and self-destruction. Clay’s friend Rip deals drugs and buys underage sex slaves. Clay’s former best friend, Julian, is now a heroin addict who has sex for money. Clay’s other best friend, Trent, is a model who watches snuff films. Meanwhile, Clay’s girlfriend, Blair, isn’t even sure that she likes Clay. Clay goes to therapy and the therapist tries to sell his screenplay. Clay struggles to tell apart his two sisters and he rarely speaks to his mother or his father. He’s haunted by memories of his grandmother slowly dying of cancer. As winter break progresses, Clay finds himself growing more and more alienated from everyone and everything around him. He feels less and less.

I had often heard that the film version was dramatically different from the book but nothing could prepare me for just how different. In the film, Clay is an anti-drug crusader who reacts to everything that he sees in Los Angeles with self-righteous revulsion. In the book, Clay simply doesn’t care. Clay’s narration is written in a flat, minimalist style, one that makes Clay into a dispassionate observer. Over the course of the narrative, there are times that Clay obviously know that he should probably feel something but he just can’t bring himself to do it. Even when he objects to Rip buying a 12 year-old sex slave, Clay doesn’t do anything to stop Rip or to help his victim. Clay is the epitome of someone who has everything but feels nothing. Most of the memorable things that happen in the movie — Julian begging his father for forgiveness and money, Clay and Blair being chased by Rip’s goons, Julian dying in the desert — do not happen in the book. They couldn’t happen in the book because all of those scenes require the characters to have identifiably human reactions to the things that they’re seeing around them.

It’s not necessarily a happy book but, fortunately, it’s also a frequently (if darkly) funny book. Bret Easton Ellis has a good ear for the absurdities of everyday conversation and some of the book’s best moments are the ones that contrast Clay’s lack of a reaction to the frequently weird things being discussed around him. Even more importantly, it’s a short book. Just when you think you can’t take another page of Clay failing to care that everyone around him will probably be dead before they hit 30, the story ends. Ellis writes just enough to let the reader understand Clay’s world and then, mercifully, the reader is allowed to escape.

Just as the movie is definitely a product of its time, the same can be said of the original novel. Reading Less than Zero is a bit like stepping into a time machine. It’s a way to experience the coke-fueled 80s without actually traveling to them.

Book Review: Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel by Peter L. Winkler

Posted on July 2, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Sometimes, I have to remind myself that Dennis Hopper is no longer with us.

Seriously, he’s one of those iconic screen figures who remains as much of a pop cultural presence in death as he was in life. For an actor who spent a good deal of his career under an unofficial blacklist, Hopper appeared in a number of classic films. Rebel Without A Cause, Giant, Night Tide, Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now, Blue Velvet, Speed, True Romance, The Trip, The Other Side of the Wind, Queen of Blood, Land of the Dead, Hoosiers, Out of The Blue …. one of the things that they all share in common is the eccentric presence of Dennis Hopper. Even Hopper’s bad films, like Waterworld, are more popular than the bad films of other actors. And while Hopper will probably always be best-known as an actor, he’s received some posthumous recognition for his work as a director. It’s been 12 years since Dennis Hopper passed but he’s still very much a part of the American cultural landscape.

How did this happen? How did Dennis Hopper go from being a kid from Kansas to being a disciple of James Dean? How did Hopper go from appearing in big budget films like Giant to working as a member of Roger Corman’s stock company? How did Hopper come to revolutionize American film with Easy Rider, just to lose the next few years of his life to his legendary addictions? Remarkably, Dennis Hopper not only inspired the “New Hollywood” with Easy Rider but he nearly destroyed it with The Last Movie. In the 70s and the first half of the 80s, he was still capable of giving a good performance but the key was to find him when he wasn’t dealing with a fit of drug-induced paranoia. And yet, even with his addictions and demons, he still directed one of the most important films of the 80s, Out of the Blue.

Remarkably, Hopper did eventually conquer his addictions. Starting with David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, Hopper remade himself as one of Hollywood’s busiest character actors and, to many, he became an almost lovable relic of the 60s. The former self-described communist became a Republican. And, even if he never could quite restart his directing career, Hopper stayed busy for the rest of his life. It was a remarkable transformation. The rebel who once ran a cult-like commune in New Mexico became a beloved member of the establishment that he once swore he would destroy.

Peter L. Winkler’s 2011 biography, Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel, takes a look at how this happened. The Dennis Hopper that emerges from this detailed biography is a natural born rebel who was also canny enough to keep one foot in the system that he was trying to destroy. As such, Hopper could shares James Dean’s dismissive attitude towards Hollywood while also remaining a favorite of John Wayne’s. Hopper could make the ultimate hippie film without actually becoming a hippie himself. Hopper had the talent necessary to keep getting roles even when he had a reputation for not being quite sane. Indeed, the book argues that Hopper’s best performances were given when he had something to prove and that Hopper’s work and his films became significantly less interesting once he was fully welcome back into the establishment.

And while I do think that Winkler is a bit too dismissive of some of Hopper’s later work, he does have a point. Dennis Hopper thrived on being a rebel, which is one reason why he came to define the late 60s and the early 70s. One reason why Hopper’s performance as Frank Booth in Blue Velvet remains so powerful is because he’s rage is so palpable. Booth is trying to destroy the world, just as surely as Hopper once tried to destroy Hollywood. But, eventually, Hopper’s style of rebellion fell out of fashion and then resurfaced as the subject of nostalgia. The rebels always eventually become the establishment.

Winkler’s biography not only takes a look at some of Hopper’s best films but it also puts him and his work in a proper historical and cultural context. The book is as much about what Hopper represented to a generation as how Hopper lived his life. And while Hopper himself is not always a sympathetic figure (like many actors, he could be more than a little self-absorbed), he does come across as being a fascinating talent. Hopper often referred to himself as being the epitome of the “American Dreamer” and this biography leaves no doubt that he was correct.

Book Review: Beowulf by Anonymous

Posted on July 1, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Wow, what an annoying book!

First published in 975, Beowulf tells the story of a Danish king named Hrothgar who can’t be bothered to be a good neighbor. The loud parties at his mead hall ends up annoying both Grendel and his mother so Grendel takes it open himself to start killing Hrothgar’s men. Hrothgar and his men are forced to abandon their mead hall …. which, well, that would be the solution right there, wouldn’t it? I mean, they could just go somewhere where there isn’t a monster living nearby and build a new mead hall. And maybe they could establish some new mead hall rules, like “Keep it down after 10 pm” and “You Don’t Have To Go Home But You Can’t Stay Here.” But instead, Hrothgar decides to cry about it. Seriously, dude, it’s just a mead hall!

Anyway, this jerk named Beowulf sails over to help out Hrothgar. But before Beowulf can help out Hrothgar, he has to spend a lot of time bragging on himself and telling everyone that he’s the greatest warrior that has ever lived. I mean, he goes on for so long that I was wondering if maybe he was just planning on boring everyone to death. Beowulf goes on to kill Grendel with his bare hands and then, when Grendel’s mother complains, Beowulf kills her too. Uhmmm …. yay, I guess.

Many years later, Beowulf is the king and one of his slaves steals a gold cup from a dragon. Needless to say, the dragon is not happy about this and really, who can blame it? I imagine that dragons spend a lot of time collecting their gold and it’s always struck me as odd that humans seem to think that they have the right to just steal from the dragons whenever they feel like it. With the dragon threatening his kingdom, Beowulf has to come out of retirement to fight one final beast….

The main problem with Beowulf is that the main character is kind of a jerk and he has a really bad habit of bragging on himself. If I was one of his subjects, I would dread having to ask him for help because Beowulf is apparently incapable of just doing something without using it as an excuse to puff himself up. Instead, he has to brag about how he’s the only person in the world who could possibly do it and, to top it all off, he has to make everyone else feel bad about the fact that they’re having to ask Beowulf for a favor. Beowulf is such a long-winded jerk that he makes Grendel and the Dragon seem sympathetic by comparison.

I’m not surprised that the author of Beowulf is anonymous. Who would want to take credit for this? For a far better look at life in the 8th Century, check out John Gardner’s Grendel. Or go watch the Robert Zemeckis-directed 2007 film adaptation, which has its flaws but also features Angelina Jolie, Crispin Glover, Anthony Hopkins, and John Malkovich! How can you wrong with a cast like that?

Book Review: The Assassination Chain by Sybil Leek and Bert R. Sugar

Posted on May 31, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here’s a few things you should know about me.

I don’t believe in ghosts.

I don’t believe in aliens.

I don’t believe in reincarnation.

I don’t believe in manifesting events and I sure as heck don’t believe in the power of Twitter prayer circles.

I do believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

That makes me a bit of a rarity in our conspiracy-crazed culture but, to me, the idea of one loser killing the most powerful man in the world makes more sense than the idea of some gigantic, complex conspiracy coming together and developing a needlessly complicated plot to kill someone who they could have just as easily blackmailed or circumvented through other methods.

That said, just because I don’t believe in conspiracy theories doesn’t mean that I don’t find them to be oddly fascinating. Take, for instance, the 1977 conspiracy tome, The Assassination Chain.

Written by Sybil Leek and Bert R. Sugar, The Assassination Chain takes a look at the theories surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Each major theory — from Oswald acting alone to accusations against the CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, Castro, the anti-Castroites, the military-industrial complex, and various right-wing oilmen — is given its own separate chapter. With the exception of the official story, each theory is given respectful consideration. After detailing the JFK theories, The Assassination Chain features chapters about the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr, and Robert F. Kennedy. It even takes a look at the attempted assassination of George Wallace and suggests that both Sirhan Sirhan and Arthur Bremer were brainwashed by people who were concerned that either RFK or Wallace could keep Nixon out of the White house.

And, in conclusion, the book suggest that the guilty party was …. EVERYONE! Everyone from the CIA to the FBI to the Mafia to the Pentagon to the richest men in Texas came together in a gigantic plot to not only kill JFK but to also to kill Rev. King, RFK, and Wallace. (I think this might be the only book to suggest that MLK and George Wallace had the same enemies.) Who could stand at the controls of such a plot? Almost as an afterthought, the book accuses Howard Hughes, the famously eccentric billionaire who was later played by Leonardo DiCaprio in The Aviator.

The book’s conclusions aren’t particularly convincing but they do provide an interesting insight into the conspiracy mindset, which states that the only evidence that matters is the evidence that supports the conclusion that you’ve already reached. There’s actually far more evidence to suggest that Oswald acted alone than there is to suggest that the CIA would risk its existence by assassinating the President as opposed to just threatening to leak the details of the President’s extramarital affairs to the press. But it’s comforting to assume that the world’s events are the result of a conspiracy as opposed to just the act of one loser who was upset because his wife left him. Conspiracies provide a way to understand the whims of fate. There’s a comfort in believing that everything happens as a part of a deliberate chain as opposed to just being random events.

The thing is, though, The Assassination Chain makes for an interesting read. Regardless of whether you buy the conspiracy angle or not, it’s always interesting to explore the darker corners of the 60s and early 70s. One reason why the JFK assassination conspiracy theories are so fascinating is because they all involve shady and downright weird characters, like alcoholic ex-FBI agent Guy Bannister and his partner, a hairless pilot and amateur cancer researcher named David Ferrie. The Assassination Chain provides a tour through the fringes of the 60s and introduces to many of the characters who were made their home in those fringes. The book’s final chapter is a detailed Who’s Who of everyone who, up to that point, had been caught up in the assassinations and the theories that followed and it’s an interesting collection of eccentrics, wannabe spies, and mentally unstable blowhards.

The worn and beat-up copy of this book that I read was obviously an old library book. It reeked of cigarette smoke and, as I leafed through the book last week, I found myself imagining the previous owner, chainsmoking while trying to understand the chaotic and random nature of the world. Whomever that person was, I hope they found some sort of answer.

Book Review: The 103rd Ballot by Robert K. Murray

Posted on April 11, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Cinematically, the 1968 Democrat Convention has been done to death.

There have been a lot of movies made about the 1968 Democrat Convention and certainly, I can understand why. Not only did you have an epic battle taking place in the Convention Hall between the Democrat establishment and the reformers but there were also riots in the streets. The police were beating up protestors and slogans were being chanted and Haskell Wexler was filming footage for Medium Cool. Yes, it was all very cinematic but again, it’s just been done to death. We don’t need another movie about what happened in 1968.

Instead, what is needed is a movie about the 1924 Democrat Convention, which was held in Madison Square Garden and which lasted for two and a half weeks because none of the men running for President could get enough votes. The two major candidates were Al Smith of New York and William McAdoo of California. Smith was an anti-prohibitionist and was seeking to become the first Catholic to be nominated by a major political party. McAdoo was the son-in-law of America’s greatest monster, Woodrow Wilson. Smith’s campaign was managed by a young Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was making a political comeback after being previously struck down by polio. Though he was not himself a member and had no use for the organization, McAdoo found himslef being supported by the Ku Klux Klan, who was then at the height of its political influence and which opposed Smith because of his Catholicism.

With neither Smith nor McAdoo able to command a majority of the delegates, other “favorite son” candidates emerged. U.S. Sen. Oscar Underwood of Alabama, a longtime opponent of Klan, was not only nominated but also fought a heroic but losing battle to insert a plank condemning the Klan into the Democrat platform. West Virginia’s John W. Davis was nominated, as was Kansas’s Jonathan M. Davis. Meanwhile, in the wings, William Jennings Bryan managed the presidential campaign of his brother, Charles, and waited to see if the Convention would perhaps turn to him and put him on the national ticket for a record fourth time. (Little did Bryan know, of course, that the Scopes Monkey Trial was waiting for him, right around the corner….)

In the end, 58 men received votes for the presidential nomination at the 1924 Democrat Convention. It took a record 103 ballots for the party to finally nominate a candidate who, after all of that, would still have to run against the enormously popular incumbent, Calvin Coolidge. Along the way, there were fist fights, political chicanery, and many accusations of lies, bad faith, and prejudice. FDR re-launcher his career with his pro-Smith speech but, in doing so, he also inspired the jealousy that would lead to Al Smith becoming one of the leading opponents of the New Deal. Meanwhile, the aging William Jennings Bryan struggled to control a party that no longer had much use for him.

It’s a fascinating story, and one that I know about because I read a book called The 103rd Ballot, which tells the story of not only the convention but also the election that followed it. The book was written by Robert K. Murray and it was originally published in 1976. It’s been around for a while but the issues that it deals with and the politicians that are profiled all feel very familiar. Today, control of the major political parties is still being fought over by the activist who do the work and the politicians who reap the rewards. Extremism is still a threat. Just as the Democrats did in 1924, Americans are still trying to figure out what the country’s role in the world should be. As described by Robert K. Murray, historic figures like FDR, Al Smith, McAdoo, Calving Coolidge, and John W. Davis all come to life. Their motivations are often petty but their actions change the course of history.

The next presidential election is going to be the 100-year anniversary of the 1924 debacle and the issues that made that convention so chaotic are the same issues that political types are still dealing with today. In 1924, America was recovering for a war and a pandemic. In 2024 …. well, you get the idea. The main difference, of course, is that we now have air conditioning. At the 1924 convention, air conditioning was still a relatively new concept and the delegates spent two and a half-weeks jammed into Madison Square Garden in the summer. Agck!

So, seriously, some aspiring Aaron Sorkin (though not Sorkin himself, that’s the last thing we need) needs to buy the rights to this book and get to work on a movie or a miniseries about what happened in 1924. I can’t wait to see who plays Al Smith!

Book Review: Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic by Glenn Frankel

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As you can probably guess from the title, Glenn Frankel’s Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic is all about the making of one of the darkest films to ever win the Oscar for Best Picture, Midnight Cowboy.

Released in 1969 and based on a novel by James Leo Herlihy, Midnight Cowboy stars Jon Voight as Joe Buck. Joe is a simple-minded but handsome man from a small-town in Texas. After both he and his girlfriend are raped by some local rednecks, Joe puts on his cowboy hat, hops in a bus, and heads for New York City. Joe figures that he can make a lot of money as a hustler but he soon discovers that New York is a far more dangerous, nightmarish, and depressing place than he ever realized. Not only is he not smart enough to make it as a hustler but he’s not even the only cowboy hanging out around Times Square. Eventually, Joe meets Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), who has a bad leg, a hacking cough, and the worst apartment in New York. Joe and Rizzo become unlikely roommates and eventually, they even become friends. (And depending on how you interpret certain scenes and lines of dialogue, they might even become more.) Rizzo helps Joe to survive in New York but Rizzo himself is dying. Not even a chance to hang out with a group of Warhol superstars can cure Rizzo of what ails him. Rizzo wants to see Florida and Joe wants to get out of New York. How far will Joe go to escape and save his only friend?

Midnight Cowboy was controversial when it was first released, with some critics calling it a masterpiece and other claiming that the film was a symbol of America’s cultural and moral decay. It went on to become the first and only X-rated film to win Best Picture. Midnight Cowboy‘s victory over films like Hello Dolly! and Anne of the Thousand Days was seen as a sign that mature and adult-themed films could actually find both acclaim and an audience. Midnight Cowboy‘s success helped to bring Hollywood into the modern era. For many, it was also responsible for establishing New York as being the dirty and heartless city that would appear in so many of the films that followed. Indeed, there’s many different lessons that one can take from Midnight Cowboy but the main one seems to be that everyone should stay the heck out of New York. Seen today, Midnight Cowboy is no longer all that shocking and director John Schlesinger occasionally seems to be trying too hard to establish his auteur credentials. But the film’s story still remains effective, as do the lead performances of Hoffman and Voight. Though being very much a film of its time, Midnight Cowboy is still watchable today. It’s not only an effective film but it’s also a milestone in Hollywood history.

As for Shooting Midnight Cowboy, it tells you pretty much everything you need to know about both the film and the controversy that has surrounded it over the years. Starting with the novel that was written by James Leo Herlihy, Shooting Midnight Cowboy meticulously follows the production of the film, exploring not only how both Voight and Hoffman came to star in the film but also how these two very competitive actors came together to create an unforgettable portrait of an unlikely friendship. It also explores everything from director John Schlesinger’s efforts to bring his vision to life to the concerns that mainstream audiences would refuse to see the film because of its adult context to the writing of the film’s famous theme song, Everybody’s Talkin’. Perhaps the most harrowing chapter deals with the ordeal that Jennifer Salt suffered through while playing the small role of Joe Buck’s Texas girlfriend, Annie. Shooting Midnight Cowboy puts the movie into its proper historical and cultural context, showing how the film commented on the issues of the time while also telling a story that remains effective even when viewed outside of the 60s. It makes for an interesting and informative read, for both the film lover and the cultural historian.

Novel Review: Oath of Office by Steven J. Kirsch

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last week, I returned to exploring my aunt’s old collection of paperback books and I read Oath of Office, a political thriller that was originally published way back in 1988.

U.S. Sen. Jonathan Starr has just been elected to the presidency of the United States of America. As the first Jewish person to win the presidency, Starr is set to make history as soon as he’s sworn in. However, there’s a problem. Starr’s been kidnapped! The morning after his upset victory, Starr finds himself in the trunk of a car and later confined to a cell. With no knowledge of who has kidnapped him or what his ultimate fate is going to be, Starr can only wait and have numerous flashbacks to the events that led to him winning the presidency.

Meanwhile, the man that Starr defeated, President Sutherland, is trying to figure out who is behind the kidnapping. Was Starr abducted by the Russians? Or perhaps the kidnapping is the work of one of the Middle Eastern terrorist groups who is trying to thwart Sutherland’s efforts to bring peace to region? Maybe it’s the senator from Texas whose dialogue consists of stuff like, “Ah’ve been workin’ on this deal …. we’ll git it through befo’ the election.” (That’s an actual quote from the book, by the way. It seems like it would have been simpler just to say that the man had an accent but some writers just have to be cute about things.) There’s a lot of possibilities but we know that Starr’s kidnapping was masterminded by an imprisoned mobster, largely because the book tells us early on. I personally would have dragged out the suspense but no matter!

While secret service agent Andy Reynolds is trying to track Starr down, the Speaker of the House is plotting to take power for himself. He and his people have come across what they believe to be a loophole in the Constitution, which will keep the electoral college from being able to vote for either Starr or his running mate. In which case, the Speaker will automatically become president as soon as the incumbent’s term expires. So, yes, this is another political thriller where the plot largely hinges on a reading of the Constitution that any halfway experienced attorney would easily be able to shoot down.

As you can probably guess, this book has its flaws. According to the blurb on the back, this was the author’s first novel and I have no idea if he ever wrote a second one. There are a lot of points in the story that don’t ring true, especially in the flashbacks to Starr’s early political career and the author has a bad habit of telling us things as opposed to showing them. And, of course, there’s that terrible attempt to capture the Texas accent. Don’t even get me started on that.

That said, the idea behind the book is an interesting one. Only two people of Jewish descent have ever been nominated by a major political party. Barry Goldwater was an Episcopalian while Joseph Liebermann found himself being opposed by the anti-Semites in his own party. Of course, neither one of those men made it to the White House. Oath of Office does make an attempt to seriously consider the challenges that would face the first Jewish president and it’s also honest about how anti-Semitism is a prejudice that is often overlooked by even those who brag about their progressive credentials. As I said, the book has an interesting idea but the plot just keeps getting in the way.

2021 In Review: Lisa Marie’s 10 Top Novels

Posted on January 31, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Be sure to check out my picks for 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, and 2011!

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood by Quentin Tarantino
Verity by Colleen Hoover
The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix
Widespread Panic by James Ellroy
Last House on Needless Street by Diane Chamberlain
Back in the Burbs by Avery Flynn and Tracy Wolff
Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave
The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner
Nothing’s Ever Easy by Amanda Lee Dixon
Red Thorns by Rebel Hart

Lisa Marie’s 2021 In Review:

2021 In Review: Lisa Marie’s 10 Top Non-Fiction Books

Posted on January 31, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Be sure to check out my previous picks for 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013!

Come Fly The World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am by Julia Cooke
The Babysitter: My Summers With A Serial Killer by Liza Rodman and Jennifer Jordan
Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood by Danny Trejo
Brat by Andrew McCarthy
Shooting Midnight Cowboy by Glenn Frankel
Mike Nichols: A Life by Mark Harris
The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream: The Hunt For A Victorian-Era Serial Killer by Dean Jobb
Dress Codes: How The Laws of Fashion Made History by Richard Thompson Ford
Hollywood Eden by Joel Selvin
Rock Me on the Water: 1974-The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television, and Politics by Ronald Brownstein