- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Random House (Aug 24 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0812992431
- ISBN-13: 978-0812992434
- Product Dimensions: 14 x 1.7 x 21.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 413 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,111,269 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Washington Post columnist and accomplished spy novelist Ignatius (A Firing Offense) here largely abandons the mechanics of espionage and sets a character study of ambition and intrigue against the workings of a great Washington paper. The Washington Sun and Tribune, is, like the Post, a serious, family-owned business. David Cantor, the novel's cynical narrator, is the editor of Reveal, a debt-ridden society magazine at the other end of the spectrum. Providentially for Cantor, a feature he writes on mysterious new D.C. billionaire Sandy Galvin gives him a new lease on life. Galvin is intent on buying the Sun, and in exchange for some inside information, he promises to make Cantor his lifestyle editor. Cantor and Galvin are both Harvard men, though Galvin never graduated, and their business relationship becomes a friendship shot through with a shared sense of nostalgia and unrealized ambitions. All goes according to plan: Galvin panics the Sun's owners into selling to him, then shakes the place out of its stodgy slumbers with bingo contests and a cable-TV station hook-up. Cantor eventually realizes, however, that Galvin's real aim is to win back his one-time Harvard girlfriend, gorgeous Candace Ridgway, the paper's patrician foreign editor, a woman left with a "cold heart" after the Vietnam-era suicide of her father, then deputy secretary of defense. As Galvin's rise leads to his inevitable fall, Cantor watches from the sidelines, playing Nick Carraway to Galvin's Gatsby. A thoroughly involving narrative with a sharp, satiric edge, Ignatius's contemporary take on the tragic confluence of love, power and ambition is a sophisticated look at the media mystique and the movers and shakers in our nation's capitol. His stylish, fluent prose, anchored with fine atmospheric detail, gives the story texture and momentum. Agent, Raphael Sagalyn. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Library Journal
Having thrilled readers with four action-packed novels (including A Firing Offense), Ignatius now does a neat backflip and thrills his readers with a love story. Publishing mogul Sandy Galvin, a.k.a. the Sun King, arrives in Washington, DC, one day with plans to revive a dying newspaper. He hires David Cantor, a cynical lifestyle writer with a profound appreciation for fluff journalism, and Candace Ridgway, a former flame and scrupulous foreign affairs writer also known as The Mistress of Fact. Shortly, both men are deeply involved with the Mistress, and the threesome spend the rest of the book sparring about love and journalistic ethics. The emotional integrity at the heart of this novel is searingly honest and makes for a wise and satisfying work. For all public libraries.
-ABarbara Conaty, Library of Congress
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
-ABarbara Conaty, Library of Congress
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
a disturbing tale,
This review is from: The Sun King (Hardcover)
A tale of a tycoon who comes to town to challenge the powers that be and ends up facing his own challenge with the woman he loves. Sandy Galvin is the Sun King, a billionaire with a talent for taking risks. Galvin arrives in Washington and proceeds to turn the Capital up side down. He buys the city's most powerful newspaper and wields it like a knife. In his way stands his old Harvard flame, Candice Ridgeway a beautiful and icy journalist known around town as the Mistress of Fact. Their encounter is tangled in the mysteries of their past and narrated by David Cantor, who is an acid-tongued reporter, a big Jerry Springer fan, and is drawn into Galvin's life to be transformed by this unpredictable man. Love is the final frontier for a generation of baby boomers, still young enough to reach for their dreams, but old enough to see the prospect of loss. Galvin can light up a room but can he melt the heart or Candice Ridgeway. This is a disturbing tale of ambition and sexual desire. I consider it of mature theme.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Gatsby, Schmatsby,
This review is from: The Sun King (Hardcover)
This is a dorky book but fun. Ignatius is such a wimp, sniveling along, brown-nosing our intelligence with less than an elementary school belief system with his white knight profiling and self-feigned cluelessness. He comes up with some sweet words once in a while which chuckle up just fine. Ignatius is a zen storyteller, performing one of those acts of 'chop wood, become enlightened, chop wood. This book reads fun, yes I had to repeat myself. One has a good time enjoying the story and hoping to all ends of realty that Ignatius doesn't believe half the stuff he's writing.
5.0 out of 5 stars
5 Suns for Sun King,
This review is from: The Sun King (Hardcover)
David Ignatius is a man of wit, sensitivity, and excellent fancy. He did a great job of creating an update of a Great-Gatsby like novel, with some well drawn wit and sarcasm to boot. But the book stands on it's own as a fantastic and sensitive tale of romance and power. What a tremendous love story! And yes, I did have considerable sympathy for Carl Sandburg Galvin, his Gatsby character. Candace Ridgway is cold ambition in the flesh, a Randian heroine carried to her logical conclusion. A (more) pathetic Hedda Gabbler. Facts are her pistols, and her aim is deadly and true. This is one to cry over, ladies (and gentlemen.)
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