Cottonwood - Hardcover

Strother, who was Gary Hart's campaign manager, has a sharp satiric eye. In his hugely entertaining debut, a young reporter with big dreams embarks on a political vaudeville tour and journey of self-examination. After spending most of his childhood with an indifferent uncle, Sonny Simmons adopts a new name--Christian Ahab--and becomes a campus hero in college, where he develops a reputation as a brilliant reporter and wins himself a wife, Darleen, a baby and big bills. Years later a story he writes about a lobbying effort involving a whores-for-votes scandal wins him the attention of the whoremaster himself, Louisiana state senator "Big Jim" DeBleaux. Writing publicity releases for the massive, Rabelaisian power broker gradually turns the beleaguered reporter toward a career in political consulting. To establish a reputation, Christian persuades Big Jim to help him run a small-time lobbyist and big-time drunk, Hugh Conklin, for the U.S. Senate. The hard-won $50,000 from Big Jim is the first step in Christian's "Cottonwood Plan"; however, ensuing steps, prove far more daunting--and, often, hilarious. Drying out Hugh is a big one, but so is managing the "steering committee," a ragtag group of drunks and pot-smokers. Assorted sexual adventures, Darleen's temper, Big Jim's threats and Machiavellian strategems add to an unforgettable Senate race. Its winner, no doubt, is the reader.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The author, whose main claim to fame is having been Gary Hart's campaign manager, has written a disappointing first novel about a campaign manager. Protagonist Christian Ahab Simmons is a small-time New Orleans newspaper editor until Big Jim LeBlanc, a lewd and crude state senate candidate, hires him to work on his campaign. Big Jim and a bevy of strange bedfellows (political and other) are coarsely drawn caricatures who corrupt the clean-cut Christian with their high-living, underhanded, wheeling-dealing ways. A dissolute Christian then rises quickly to become Big Jim's campaign manager and, eventually, a political mastermind who engineers a national campaign for an even viler and more inept U.S. senatorial candidate named Hugh Conklin. The finagling and philandering are supposed to be funny, but they're not. Skip this.
- Will Hepfer, SUNY at Buffalo Libs.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.