Explore
Memories of the Ford administration
John Updike
1992-2007
1 Ungluer has
Faved this Work
Login to Fave
Alfred Clayton, the hero of John Updike's fifteenth novel, has received a request from the Northern New England Association of American Historians for his memories and impressions of the Gerald Ford Administration (1974-77). "Alf" obliges with his memories of a turbulent period in his personal history, as well as pages of an unpublished book he was writing at the time, on the life of James Buchanan, the fifteenth President of the United States (1857-61). The alternating texts body forth an arresting contrast between the life-styles and social dictions of two American centuries. The contemporary characters include Clayton's wife, Norma, whom he thinks of as the Queen of Disorder, and his mistress, Genevieve Mueller, whom he thinks of as the Perfect Wife, as well as his various colleagues on the faculty of Wayward College in New Hampshire. The characters around Buchanan include his doomed fiancee, Ann Coleman, and such eloquent contemporary politicians as Andrew Jackson, Edwin Stanton, and (in his capacity as American Consul in Liverpool) Nathaniel Hawthorne. All come unsettlingly to life in Clayton's wide-ranging confessions, which bring us down to the year 1991.
Why unglue this book? Have your say.
You must be logged in to comment.
NicolasMorin
Rights Information
Are you the author or publisher of this work? If so, you can claim it as yours by registering as an Unglue.it rights holder.Keywords
No keywords yet.Editions
Share
Copy/paste this into your site: