The Race [Hardcover]

 

 

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Is there a place for honesty and integrity in American politics? Yes! Only if all the candidates are heavily dosed with sodium pentathol.

But all kidding aside, politics has always been a hotbed for lies, hypocrisy and mudslinging. And in "The Race," Richard North Patterson gives the seemingly impossible a solid, impassioned shot -- the whole idea of a political candidate who actually means (most of) what he says.

Corey Grace is a sexy, kind, charismatic senator from a benighted town in Ohio, whose bright past as a war hero and politician is marred by a chilly divorce, a terrible war incident, and the tragic loss of his baby brother. Now he's one of the frontrunners for the presidency, but up against a religious fanatic, and a kindly but dim senator being manipulated by a political mastermind.

What's more, Corey has begun dating an African-American liberal actress, which has divided potential voters -- even after he saves his opponent from Al Qaeda assassins. Now his honesty is weighed against a politician's need to butter up his voters -- and he must fight his creepy opponents without selling his integrity, or betraying his new love.

You have to hand it to Patterson -- he really gives it a lot of passion and intensity, and it's pretty clear he's done his homework about the putrescent morass that is modern politics. That includes dealing with the touchy issues of our time -- including stem cell research, racism and war -- by trying to show both sides. Admittedly, not always equally.

The book itself is a dense, unwinding string of political battles, each tipping off a reaction in the voters and in other politicians. It's an elaborate story, full of unexpected twists, and a lot of them come from nothing more than an honest speech or a new strategy. It takes a lot of literary skill and atmosphere to make a simple speech suspenseful, but Patterson does manage it.

Do be warned: like any political book, this has a slant. Patterson does work hard to show both sides of debates like religion, stem cell research, et cetera. But he tends to paint the voting public in too extreme colours, with few of the many "in between" shades of grey. And Democrats are pretty much... MIA altogether, save the equally extreme Lexie.

Corey is a fairly solid lead character -- he has his flaws, his tragedies, his mistakes and his personal ghosts. His problem is that he seems, from the start, almost too tailor-made to be the perfect bipartisan politician, making him seem a bit too perfect. And sometimes credibility is stretched to keep him in the game -- Al Qaeda just happens to show up then to make him look heroic?

None of the other characters are really likeable... instead, they are almost frighteningly realistic, from the easily-manipulated politicians to the cold spin doctors, religious zealots to the hard-boiled liberal actress. It's hard not to read some real-life people into these characters, but they gradually grow personas of their own by the finale.

"The Race" has some stumbling blocks on the way to political -- and personal -- but despite a few flaws, Patterson's latest is a solid, intricate political thriller.

Senator Corey Grace was raised in Ohio and flew a US Air Force combat fighter. Almost inevitably, that makes him a Republican and a Presidential hopeful. A few impediments stand in his way. He's divorced, hardly a novelty in the 21st Century, but he's currently dating an African-American actress, Lexie Hart. There was a younger brother, Clay, dead in disturbing circumstances during his first year as a cadet at the Air Force Academy. As a final, almost insurmountable obstacle in US politics, Corey struggles hard to be honest. Given the power of the Republican Party's election machine, that probably is the biggest challenge Corey faces.

In this fast-paced and revealing novel, Patterson pits a caring, almost crusading, young senator against the forces of establishment politics and the passions of Protestantism. For there is a new element every presidential hopeful in the US must contend with - the Christian convinced that the US is under the special attention of a deity and requires a scourging to cleanse it of threats both internal and external. The party establishment is represented here by Rob Marotta, Senator from Pennsylvania whose political life is run by his puppet master, Magnus Price. The Protestant Christian theme is carried by Bob Christy, a crowd-mover who plays many ends to earn himself the role of President-maker.

Patterson builds his characters well as he conveys them through the twisted maze of a US party nomination campaign. Readers must be attentive or they're likely to be lost in the plots, counter-plots and other crosscurrents of political maneuvering. Various hidden pasts are revealed and "family values" are given the traditional exposure required in US politics. Corey struggles to keep the campaign centred on issues, but that's almost a futile hope. "Personal character", so easily impugned, becomes the focus of all the candidates' managers, with salacious revelations keeping the reader's rapt attention to see what happens next.

Two events that would test anyone, an assassination attempt and a "terrorist" attack, provide Gulf War hero Grace with an opportunity to reinforce his stature. Neither is terribly plausible, especially the second, but Patterson is writing for an audience willing to accept such distortions if the conclusion of the book points to a path out of the swamp of fear they now occupy. One interesting element here is that Patterson focuses on the Republican nomination campaign on the assumption that party will inevitably triumph over their Democratic competition. Although Grace expresses disapproval of the sham of the Iraq crusade, he is able to stand above it. The Republican Party, although tarnished by the current administration, remains in the author's mind the steadfast pillar representing US society. Corey Grace is the political messiah who will bring his party out of the wilderness - one way or another. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Corey Grace is the perfect presidential candidate. He's a decorated American hero, a Gulf War veteran who survived months of captivity and torture. Now 43 and a senator from Ohio, he's honest, conscientious, completely truthful, and movie star good looking. Unfortunately, he only exists between the pages of Richard North Patterson's timely, compelling new novel The Race.

Grace is the ideal person to win his party's nomination, or so many tell him. Most would appreciate it if he wouldn't be quite so truthful and would be willing to pacify his powerful enemies in some small ways, but he's still an A-list contender.

He is not a man without issues - a younger brother who idolized him committed suicide, his marriage failed, his only child, a daughter, is a stranger to him, and he grew up with remote, hard scrabble parents. In addition, he finds himself attracted to Lexie Hart, a beautiful actress who visited him to enlist his vote for stem cell research. An actress would be bad enough, he is told, but she is an African-American actress. She, too, has issues, experiences in her past that haunt.

Once Grace decides that he will work to become his party's nominee, he finds himself in mixed company - others vying for the Republican Party's nomination are Bible-thumping Rev. Bob Christy, and Senator Rob Marotta, a man who sees Grace's arrival in the Senate as "easy as his smile, greased by an act of heroism that seemed to induce an uncomfortable self-doubt in those never called on to be heroes." In addition, Marotta is controlled by a campaign director who gives added meaning to manipulation and machination.

However, when photos of Grace and Lexie are made public it seems his chances are doomed until terrorists break into an office building and Grace performs an amazing act of heroism. Then, as an adviser tells him, "This is a transcendent moment,.....It's like Giuliani after 9/11 - a remission of all prior sins."

From that point on Patterson ratchets up his narrative to an unexpected conclusion. In this intriguing political novel the author leaves no cards unplayed - racism, terrorism, gay rights, media control. The Race is a timely story and a terrific one.

- Gail Cooke

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