Word: agnew
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Irving Wallace, or Arthur Hailey, or any of the other neo-realists in the supermarket-check-out-counter-school of modern American fiction might have been able to go somewhere with this plot, but Agnew simply does not know where to start. Nothing happens for the first two hundred pages. Agnew introduces his characters with an almost Proustian verve for description, but his idea of expressing meaningful detail is to inform the reader every time a character shaves, or brushes his teeth. Then, when the action finally takes place--most of it in the final fifty pages--Agnew makes...
...patchwork nature of the plot also makes it difficult to divine morals from the tale. Canfield is both guilty and a victim of circumstance. One is tempted to look for similarities between Canfield's fate and Agnew's, but there are simply too few parallels between the two cases and not enough clues in the book...
More important than the book's moral--if it has one--is the presence of Agnew's old, anti-liberal venom. Though he has scrapped his polysyllabic, alliterative invectives, Agnew still displays contempt for students, activists, professors, welfare mothers and the rest of that crew. He displays his feelings about the media, and about Jews, with special gusto...
...Canfield Decision, the "media conspiracy" Agnew ranted about when he was in office becomes a reality. The most influential members of the media belong to "Operation Torch," a collection of "media people who would secretly cooperate on the big issues so that America 'would not come apart at the seams.' " Finally, Agnew assures us that reporters have the table manners of goats...
...Agnew sympathizes with the analysis of a Persian anti-communist leader...