Word: axels
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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SWEDEN Goran Persson Axel Bramstort 61 years...
Suckled on his mother's public disappointment, son Axel pursues power behind the scenes. He becomes one of the capital's gray eminences, "a fixer without portfolio" whose fusion of public and private business seems more like class privilege than conflict of interest...
Just, a Washington journalist in the early '60s, writes from experience. But there is no master clef to this roman. Axel reads like a composite rather than a copy. He has spent more than half his years in chronic pain caused by wounds suffered during World War II. His marriage to Sylvia, a wellborn New Yorker and poet, was a mismatch. "Government's the opiate of the patrician masses," she tells him shortly before walking out. Her parting shot is that Axel, former oss operative and friend of Presidents, has "too many secrets, not enough mystery...
Ironically, what sets Echo House apart from the hyperrealities of the usual Washington novel is precisely its air of ineffability. Beneath his bulletproof exterior Axel has a vulnerable emotional life. Why exactly does he carry a 50-year torch for a member of the French Resistance who gave him only unfriendly glances during the war? Were her youthful beauty and clarity of purpose an unshakable reminder of his own murky career as a political mechanic...
...that spans nearly the entire 20th century and sees the Federal District emerge from drowsy Southern town into frenetic center of world power. "Just, a Washington journalist in the early ?60s, writes from experience," says TIME's R.Z. Sheppard. "But there is no master clef to this roman. Protagonist Axel Behl reads like a composite rather than a copy. He has spent more than half his years in chronic pain caused by wounds suffered during World War II. His marriage to Sylvia, a wellborn New Yorker and poet, was a mismatch. Her parting shot before leaving is that Axel, former...