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Dark Horse
Nov. 20th, 2017 02:30 pmThinking about clades today reminded me of an authorial clade, containing a number of writers I read voraciously in the early '70s: Leon Uris, Fletcher Knebel, Morris West, Arthur Hailey, and, in a distant orbit, James Michener. Knebel, in particular, came back to my attention.
Fletcher Knebel wrote one great novel, "Seven Days in May", and one very good one, "Night of Camp David". Another of his novels, "Dark Horse", succumbed to a severe case of Marty Stu. The titular character, one Edward Nicholas Quinn, a minor New Jersey pol, stumbles into the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976, pulls together a coalition stretching from rednecks through inner-city ethnics to hippies, and very nearly wins the election. There's a bit of a scandal during the campaign, when it is revealed that Quinn is having an affair with the wife of a Texas senator, but it doesn't slow his drive towards the White House.
On election day, Texas goes to Quinn. One Southern pundit shakes his head sadly: "I never thought I'd see the day when Texas would vote for an adulterer."
Those were simpler days, in some respects, weren't they?
Fletcher Knebel wrote one great novel, "Seven Days in May", and one very good one, "Night of Camp David". Another of his novels, "Dark Horse", succumbed to a severe case of Marty Stu. The titular character, one Edward Nicholas Quinn, a minor New Jersey pol, stumbles into the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976, pulls together a coalition stretching from rednecks through inner-city ethnics to hippies, and very nearly wins the election. There's a bit of a scandal during the campaign, when it is revealed that Quinn is having an affair with the wife of a Texas senator, but it doesn't slow his drive towards the White House.
On election day, Texas goes to Quinn. One Southern pundit shakes his head sadly: "I never thought I'd see the day when Texas would vote for an adulterer."
Those were simpler days, in some respects, weren't they?
