Allen Drury

Political reporter who achieved a measure of fame and fortune for Advise and Consent, which sat on the bestseller lists for something like 93 weeks and was made into a once-popular, now somewhat-forgotten prestige picture with Otto Preminger directing and Charles Laughton supposedly getting one last great role. Drury wrote other books, none of them as famous as Advise -- I would be very interested in knowing what other people thought of them. (From what I've gathered most people think the other books are awful, although I've read a few people try to make a case for the immediate follow-up, A Shade of Difference.)

Advise is actually pretty decent. Loosely based on the Alger Hiss case, it's a lengthy description of a contentious Secretary of State confirmation hearing. It's soon revealed that the nominee had at best pacifist tendencies, and at worst was an actual Communist sympathizer. This being written at the height of the Cold War by a man we'd certainly call a conservative today, well.

It would be somewhat accurate to call this a "political thriller", although that's not, I think, what Drury intended. I think Drury was looking to write a socio-realistic novel of Washington, with the Senate as an institution as "the hero", rather than any individual Senator. It just so happened to be Drury's good fortune to peg all of his reminiscences and impressions to a plot with some real suspense built into it. That, I'm sure, is why it stayed as popular as it did.

I read somewhere online that Drury wrote most of Advise in the white heat of a first draft. The book shows it. The novel jumps povs, and the first two sections, especially part two, which is told from the pov of aging Southern Senator Seab Cooley (the Laughton part in the movie) are the best written as a whole, the best crafted. They feel smooth, thought-out, and complete.

Part three, which is told from the pov of an up-and-coming young Senator from Utah named Brigham Anderson (supposedly based on JFK) is sloppier as a whole, a bit too long and rambling, but parts of that section have a genuine lyrical power, especially near the end. At his best Drury could write with a surprising white heat -- I rather suspect this is the most strongly felt section of the novel, and probably Drury's own favorite.

The book unfortunately falters in the final sections, when Drury wakes up to the fact that he's actually writing a story and will have to finish it. The plot demands begin to kick in, and what had seemed engagingly expansive suddenly constricts, the way a piece of paper will crumple when a man clenches his fist around it. This is a common fault of writers, especially writers who are better at shorter forms, oddly enough. They are in love with scenes and settings and the interplay of character, and not so much the story they're trying to tell. When they eventually get to the story, they overreact, make the plot strictures tighter than they need be. Guys and gals like this should really give the whole book another draft, even out the tensions somehow. But then maybe after writing six hundred pages you get a little tired of everything.

Despite the forced feel, though, the payoff does have its moments. I especially liked how understated the major victories really were.

Advise is no classic, but it's a good book, mostly, certainly worth a look. It's an interesting artifact of its time, too: its politics, its geopolitical views (Drury, oddly, hated India of all things), its opinions of sexuality, its reverence for the Senate (which almost feels quaint now.)