Orchids for Mother [Paperback]

Although Norman Mailer's massive "Harlot's Ghost" remains the ultimate epic novel about the CIA, he wisely avoided physical and mental reprsentations of the CIA's golden years' director of counterintelligence, who did great damage to "The Company" through his paranoid and ultimately worthless witch-hunts. But if you are a "Farm Buff", don't miss this one, which adds to the great non-fiction accounts of David Martin ("Wilderness of Mirrors") and Tom Mangold ("Cold Warrior") as well as Ian McEwan's very fine novel "The Innocent". Long out of print since it's Bantam paperback edition of 1978, "Orchids for Mother" is well worth seeking out for anyone fascinated by "Mother", as Angleton was known to his colleagues. His idiosyncratic hobby was raising and hybridizing orchids, a complex, lengthy endeavor which is a true version of Angleton's life, along with his distinctive gaunt facial features and omnipresent black homburg hat. Author Aaron Latham, a Ph.D. graduate of Princeton, was a reporter for the Washington Post, an editor for Esquire, and contributor to many other famed journals. In fact, this was one of the hundred or so books listed in Mailer's "Harlot's Ghost" bibliography and in a way is a nice companion piece to that far more complex, erudite work. "Orchids" is so close to the truth about Angleton that it is probably the best fictional account of his life. Well worth searching out; if I ever get around to adding to the many great Amazon reviews of "Harlot's Ghost" I certainly will be mentioning it for its great page-burner fiction, which far exceeds the very weak and boring other book about Angleton by William F. Buckley. A great read!

This is a masterful and underrated novel, which raises questions about the wisdom of entrusting a country to its secret services. Most likely, the novel's popularity suffered from the fact that "it takes one to know one." The novelist obviously knew but most of his readers couldn't possibly have known that this novel is a roman a clef -- a factual analysis of CIA and the character of would-be spies. The author analyzes the essence of Langley by weaving his wise commentary through James Angleton's story. The novel gives details that only someone who "went through the training" could know. The novel vacillates between scorn for spyworld and fascination with it. The hero, despite himself, is attracted to Angleton's fake persona (which Angleton himself derived from Nero Wolfe's fat orchid-loving detective). The hero rejected the seminary; by the end of the novel, he has rejected the world as represented by the essence of evil that is spyworld. (Time to return to the seminary but this time at a deeper, less naive level.)

I purchased this book with the intention of finding out about the enigmatic counter-intelligence chief of the CIA nicknamed Mother, who in most accounts is a fictional representation of the real CIA Chief of Counter-Intelligence James Jesus Angleton. Rather than just picking it up out of a dealer's bin. As fiction it makes for a good, and different sort of spy-yarn. It's not so much in the vein of James Bond's familiar exploits with the dapper spy and the hoardes of women, fancy gadgets and souped-up cars. The main character is certainly older, and fixed in his ways, calling to mind a John LeCarre type of anti-spy, or anti-James Bond handsome rich type of spy. "Orchids For Mother" deals mostly with the behind the scenes operations and betrayals and inter-office mechaniations and ambitions than a more kiss kiss bang bang type of story. There is globe-trotting operations, tense war strife moments, and definitely enough sexual escapades to keep a James Bond type enthusiast entertained. But this is more a novel along the lines of the William F. Buckley type, more intelligence than brawns.

I found as fiction this tale engrossing although the author's leaning of a seeming peevishness with his main character I felt throughout the book. If possible this Mother felt more like an anti-Angleton type of character, succumbing to the more petty aspects of a paranoid nature and vindictive against those who had ousted him. I didn't see the end coming, and felt emotion for the main character, given his life over to the Company, and death too.

I found it also bemusedly cynical, in the absurdities of the spy life and the personalities who make up these clandestine agencies, along the lines of Robert Littell's "The Company". A rich novel and now TNT mini-series (available on DVD)"The Company" is a wonderful fictonal gathering of the bunch who made up and started the CIA, operated during the Cold War and filled with action-packed excitement along with intelligent suspense. Although in Littell's tale I was left with a more pro-Angleton view than in "Orchids For Mother". If I had to sum up "Orchids For Mother" I would say it is more like Littell's in writing style and theme, though Mother is certainly a whole different character. Between the two characterizations it holds for a most schizophrenic view of a fascinating character in U.S. spy history.

A book worth at least a little more than the 10 cents on the tag of the cover featured here on Amazon...A great beach read for those interested in different spy novels, and a little bit of 1970's nostalgia.

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