Word: sheed
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Professional politicians, most Americans assume, are at worst corrupt. Sheed thinks most of them are crazy. He may well be right, but the political novel isn't suited to expound such a far-reaching thesis. As a result, Sheed's book seems like a shotgun marriage of escapism and pretentious character analysis...
...style political novel rarely concentrated on a single man; it was narrative or panoramic, not analytical. The new politics born in the last decade often seems based on personality, so Wilfrid Sheed's new-style novel is the portrait of one man, Senator Brian Casey. Crippled by polio since the age of 15, Casey turns his deformity into a power base after he discovers that "people will always be kind". But this childhood trauma is the source of Casey's instability as well as his appeal, and eventually leads to his decision to throw away his chances for the Presidency...
...Sheed has camouflaged his simplistic view of human motivation with the literary techniques developed in his earlier work. He divides his story in half, changes narrators in midstream and works endless transformations of style. Preoccupied with technique, he fails to provide enough information to create even the most casual sympathy. The most sophisticated campaign saga, after all, is a failure if the reader doesn't care who wins the election...
Casey might be less opaque if Sam Perkins, through whom Sheed presents the campaign, were more observant. A Harvard speechwriter who becomes his candidate's Ivy League conscience, Perkins concentrates more on the sexual activities of the campaign secretary than on Casey's political life. This secretary exaggerates the love interest of the old political novel -- her cool efficiency disintegrates into virtual nymphomania whenever Casey wins a primary. Sheed ignores the opportunity to describe the fascinating symbiosis of sex and politics within a campaign; he is satisfied to turn a writer's trick with tradition. Sheed's disappointing conclusion...
...introducing polio and making Casey Irish, Sheed means to conjure up the myths of Roosevelt and Kennedy. But he accomplishes little with this powerful material beyond a few superficial parallels between the attitudes of the polio victim and the politician. The best of these comparisons suggests that both outwardly trust the advice of experts, but privately count on a miracle to solve their difficulties...