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29th out of 54 books
—
40 voters
Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life
by
Ann Beattie
Dazzlingly original, Ann Beattie’s Mrs. Nixon is a riveting exploration of an elusive American icon and of the fiction writer’s art. Pat Nixon remains one of our most mysterious and intriguing public figures, the only modern First Lady who never wrote a memoir. Beattie, like many of her generation, dismissed Richard Nixon’s wife: “interchangeable with a Martian,” she said....more
Hardcover, 304 pages
Published
November 15th 2011
by Scribner
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This book is marketed as a novel, yet the author uses a pedantic approach-- as though teaching creative writing -- via the imagined life of Pat Nixon, wife of our disgraced President. The author's writing style is quite disconcerting because it reads like a text book. Must she explain the most obvious analogies, i.e., crystal bowl and crystal ball?The many comparisons of the Nixons and/or events in their lives to literary works, such as Chekhov, seems to be a purely academic effort with little m...more
I was intrigued by the premise of this 'novel' and even more intrigued once I started reading it. This is in no way, shape or form a 'novel' as we know it - or even entirely fiction. It is, rather, Beattie's rather intellectual exploration of what it would be like to write a historical novel if one set out to do so. In a bizarre sort of way, I think this book is to a novel what white space is to graphic design and typography - an outline of what we know, what is real, what we can imagine, and an...more
Nov 18, 2011
Joy H.
marked it as to-read
Added 11/18/11.
I first heard about this book from a NY Times review. It sounds intriguing.
Excerpts from Goodreads description:
============================================
"Pat Nixon remains one of our most mysterious and intriguing public figures, the only modern first lady who never wrote a memoir."
...
"Drawing on a wealth of sources from Life magazine to accounts by Nixon’s daughter, and his doctor, to The Haldeman Diaries and Jonathan Schell’s The Time of Illusion, Beattie reconstructs dozens o...more
I first heard about this book from a NY Times review. It sounds intriguing.
Excerpts from Goodreads description:
============================================
"Pat Nixon remains one of our most mysterious and intriguing public figures, the only modern first lady who never wrote a memoir."
...
"Drawing on a wealth of sources from Life magazine to accounts by Nixon’s daughter, and his doctor, to The Haldeman Diaries and Jonathan Schell’s The Time of Illusion, Beattie reconstructs dozens o...more
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I didn't like this book, but that dislike was ACTIVE.
Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times expressed exactly how I felt:
"The title of Ann Beattie's new book, "Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life," suggests that the author might be trying to channel Pat Nixon or conjure up her life with Dick, much the way Curtis Sittenfeld channeled a Laura Bush-like first lady in her 2008 novel, "American Wife." [I picked the book off the library shelf because I thought it might be like "American Wife." My a...more
Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times expressed exactly how I felt:
"The title of Ann Beattie's new book, "Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life," suggests that the author might be trying to channel Pat Nixon or conjure up her life with Dick, much the way Curtis Sittenfeld channeled a Laura Bush-like first lady in her 2008 novel, "American Wife." [I picked the book off the library shelf because I thought it might be like "American Wife." My a...more
This is an interesting little book in that I liked it because it was so different and it was amazing in it's concept, but I could not give it five stars.
I read this at the urging of a friend even though I couldn't imagine much interesting about Pat Nixon or, for that matter, her husband. They seem like sawdust people. There is nothing inventive, creative or adventurous about either one of them.
Everything they do is proper and stiff from the way they dress to how they conduct themselves. They...more
I read this at the urging of a friend even though I couldn't imagine much interesting about Pat Nixon or, for that matter, her husband. They seem like sawdust people. There is nothing inventive, creative or adventurous about either one of them.
Everything they do is proper and stiff from the way they dress to how they conduct themselves. They...more
Oh my! What has happened to Anne Beattie? I used to rush to read her stories in The New Yorker and looked forward to any of her books of short stories.
This was absolutely dreadful. It is not history, not a biography, not a novel. It appears to be a book about writing on an extended topic. There are imagined scenes and dialogue that don't seem to ring true at all. The title, Mrs Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life, led me to believe that I would read a fictionalized account of Pat Nixon's life. "P...more
This was absolutely dreadful. It is not history, not a biography, not a novel. It appears to be a book about writing on an extended topic. There are imagined scenes and dialogue that don't seem to ring true at all. The title, Mrs Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life, led me to believe that I would read a fictionalized account of Pat Nixon's life. "P...more
Dec 08, 2011
Marcia
added it
In spite of the title, I don't think Pat Nixon is really the main character in Beattie's book. It seems to me to be far more about Ann Beattie's efforts to understand, or at least come to terms with, a character so interior that there she gives observers very few clues.
Beattie narrates her own puzzlement as she tries to imagine what was on Mrs. Nixon's mind in this situation or that. She's read the book by Julie Eisenhower, and she's studied the record -- looked at interviews, etc., but she does...more
Beattie narrates her own puzzlement as she tries to imagine what was on Mrs. Nixon's mind in this situation or that. She's read the book by Julie Eisenhower, and she's studied the record -- looked at interviews, etc., but she does...more
The title alone holds more promise than Beattie, a masterful writer otherwise, produces. She asks many questions about events in Pat Nixon's life that aren't entirely known, details that she mulls over. Instead of writing them, imagining them, as you would expect, she lectures. And lectures. And lectures. (I don't recall signing up for one of her college courses.) She talks about other writers; she talks about the fiction writer's approach to writing fiction, but why do that at the expense of a...more
I have a shoebox that has an assortment of papers in it--everything from newspaper clippings to recipes to not-quite-junk mail. This novel reminds me of that box.
Beattie, in her recreation of Mrs. Nixon's life, tells us that she may be an unreliable narrator and during the course of the book she reminds us often of that fact. Each chapter hops and skips through incidents that may or may not be fact, or based on fact, or fanciful lies that want to be facts. It is our job as reader to look at what...more
Beattie, in her recreation of Mrs. Nixon's life, tells us that she may be an unreliable narrator and during the course of the book she reminds us often of that fact. Each chapter hops and skips through incidents that may or may not be fact, or based on fact, or fanciful lies that want to be facts. It is our job as reader to look at what...more
By tackling the subject of the iconic and elusive "Mrs. Nixon," Ann Beattie has chosen an almost insurmountable task. The unknown and unknowable wife of Richard Nixon was a woman defined by the times and by her family history. She had learned early on to present a façade to the world and especially upon taking on the role of public figure. Her brief experience in acting, as a young person, may have best prepared her for this choice.
Beattie's work is a pursuit toward understanding the woman behin...more
Beattie's work is a pursuit toward understanding the woman behin...more
I didn't REALLY finish this book, but I have too much to say about it to NOT rate it as if I had.
I was fairly excited about this book; I really like the idea of short chapters in a real person's imagined life. It's not that I'm particularly interested in Pat Nixon, but why not Pat Nixon? But instead of this book reading like an imagined life story, it read like a book by a professor of short stories sharing all her expertise about short stories. Tangentially connected to Pat Nixon. Frankly, I do...more
I was fairly excited about this book; I really like the idea of short chapters in a real person's imagined life. It's not that I'm particularly interested in Pat Nixon, but why not Pat Nixon? But instead of this book reading like an imagined life story, it read like a book by a professor of short stories sharing all her expertise about short stories. Tangentially connected to Pat Nixon. Frankly, I do...more
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Quite an unusual literary collage of sorts. Inappropriate to categorize as an authentic fictional biography of Pat Nixon because the primary focus appears to be the elephant in the "book" referred to as RN, and Ann Beattie's incessant professorial banter not only heavily spiced with a vast array of literary devices, but also replete with accompanying morsels.
"...Salesclerk, Lyrical Ballad Bookstore, Saratoga Springs, N.Y., July2007: Some Life magazines, huh? Look at that Tricia Nixon Cox, on the...more
"...Salesclerk, Lyrical Ballad Bookstore, Saratoga Springs, N.Y., July2007: Some Life magazines, huh? Look at that Tricia Nixon Cox, on the...more
Not as much a guide to the craft of writing as those by Welty, King, Gardner and Davies, but more of an annotated tour. A very self conscious book but enjoyable because on one level it really is about Mrs. Nixon, or the person Ann Beattie believes her to be. Once you finally realize that this is not a novel in the usual sense you can settle in to see how someone's life "must have been" based on indirect and fairly scanty evidence. If a person does not leave behind something they have written the...more
This is an intriguing book. It's about more than just Mrs. Nixon; it's about Richard Nixon, Watergate, writing, authors, fiction and nonfiction. Ann Beattie is quite taken with Mrs. Nixon, not just because she was a public figure but because she was a public figure who never allowed the public to know her. Beattie clearly relishes this lack of knowledge and attempts (and pretends at times) to fill in those gaps. The result appears to be a nonfictional and fictional account of Mrs. Nixon, but the...more
What might have been an original experiment blurring the lines between fact, fiction, and metafiction is instead an embarrassing and half-baked mess. Especially bad are Beattie's ludicrous prescriptive passages about writing itself, which make one cringe to think about what her poor students must have to endure in her classes. It's hard to believe that this awkward, labored attempt is by the same skillful (if also somewhat overrated) minimalist who was so entertaining and funny at the start of h...more
I got through this book the first time about a month ago, and included it in a list of favorites for the year over on my blog. But I wasn't finished with it then and have continued to paw back and forth among the various sections to admire what the author has done here.
Ann Beattie has been a well-known novelist and short story writer since the mid-70s. It so happens that I was in a writing workshop that she was leading at the University of Virginia when her first novel and first collection of st...more
Ann Beattie has been a well-known novelist and short story writer since the mid-70s. It so happens that I was in a writing workshop that she was leading at the University of Virginia when her first novel and first collection of st...more
As someone with a perverse interest in Nixoniana, I was expecting that Ann Beattie's Mrs. Nixon might do for Pat what Robert Coover did for (to?) RN in The Public Burning: take the historical figure as we have come to know him/her, smash through all those received narratives with the writerly sledgehammer, and rebuild him/her as a complex, sympathetic, pathetic, supremely weird character.
Mrs. Nixon is not that book.
Instead, it's a captivating collection of anecdotes, quips, imagined conversati...more
Mrs. Nixon is not that book.
Instead, it's a captivating collection of anecdotes, quips, imagined conversati...more
Ann Beattie was 24 when the Watergate burglaries happened, wrecking the young graduate student's youthful idealism.
Now, all these years later, the acclaimed writer is trying to come to grips with the trauma by homing in on one of its victims. In "Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life," Beattie writes of the Nixon presidency's denouement: "My eyes and my curiosity riveted themselves to Mrs. Nixon at her husband's side. I had accepted her as relatively unimportant; she was the antithesis of a rol...more
Now, all these years later, the acclaimed writer is trying to come to grips with the trauma by homing in on one of its victims. In "Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life," Beattie writes of the Nixon presidency's denouement: "My eyes and my curiosity riveted themselves to Mrs. Nixon at her husband's side. I had accepted her as relatively unimportant; she was the antithesis of a rol...more
I first read excerpts of this book in the New Yorker a few months ago and I was intrigued! I picked it up and started reading it and it feels like I'm being lectured to while the author tries valiantly to compare Pat Nixon's life to characters in literature. I honestly thought that this would be a full-fledged novel, and instead i'm getting the feeling like I'm in a class and I'm reading the instructor's notes for a lecture. From the reviews I've been reading, it sounds like several people are f...more
This was a very interesting read! The author is an excellent writer who has an unusual way of presenting Pat Nixon. Each chapter was like a short story - some being a bit high-brow for me in a literary sense since I don't read many collections of short stories. Still, I enjoyed many of the chapters and learned a bit about Pat Nixon and her family. I couldn't classify it as either fiction or nonfiction, but it was somewhere in between. Good suggestion, Cat!
I read 100 pages of Mrs. Nixon. I wanted to like this book. I had seen the author interviewed several times when the book was published. It was put forth as taking historical events and then fictionalizing from there. There was not much about Mrs. Nixon herself. Much of the book revolved around other short stories. While I like reading about writing this just didn't seem to work. 100 pages was enough.
ah, if only I could give a negative rating. I wrote a rather long review, and then realized it was more rant than critique. So, to try again:
This book was supposed to be about Pat Nixon. It wasn't.
It was supposed to be well-written. It wasn't.
It should have been interesting. It wasn't.
If anyone can actually force himself to read the entire thing, he doesn't have a life.
This book was supposed to be about Pat Nixon. It wasn't.
It was supposed to be well-written. It wasn't.
It should have been interesting. It wasn't.
If anyone can actually force himself to read the entire thing, he doesn't have a life.
Not only didn't I like this book, I couldn't finish it. Thank you to all the Goodreads folks who by virtue of their reviews gave me permission to abandon this conceit. And not finishing a book is a very very hard decision for me.
For would be novelists, perhaps one might be aided by Ms. Beattie's writing tips but to read a fictionized imagination of Pat Nixon the concept failed.
For would be novelists, perhaps one might be aided by Ms. Beattie's writing tips but to read a fictionized imagination of Pat Nixon the concept failed.
I was disappointed. This is not a novel, or a historical biography. More time is spent on stories by other writers than chronicling Mrs. Nixon's life. The book does not flow and it's hard to follow.
I am a Democrat and not a Nixon fan.But I felt the book was unfair and condescending to Mrs. Nixon.
Diane writes a review for goodreads that I heartly agree with.
I am a Democrat and not a Nixon fan.But I felt the book was unfair and condescending to Mrs. Nixon.
Diane writes a review for goodreads that I heartly agree with.
I only made it to about page 12 or 13. I just decided I dind't feel like giving it a try despite my conviction to give it a try. This book didn't get a very good rating on Goodreads, but I decided to try something different and read it anyway. Couldn't do it. It wasn't a novel. It wasn't a biography, it wasn't a story. It was weird.
Started out as an interesting way to get to know a public person who was very private. Lots of creative conjecture, backed up with some justification. But the MFA-short story stuff was piled up a bit too high. In the end it looked as if she had just rifled through her teaching files and pasted them together with a Nixonian glue.
Jan 10, 2012
Kara Lindstrom
added it
I think Ann Beattie is a great contemporary short-story writer. This thing, however, isn't so great. Neither novel, nor biography, nor short-story, nor essay. That, in itself, wouldn't be so bad if the "thing" on the page added up to something. At best it's an extended musing on writing and imaging an icon's personal life.
Very hard to tag. It's both fiction and non-fiction. Not short stories, but includes flash fiction. After I wrote up my comments, I read both positive (a little tentative) and negative reviews. An odd book; a new genre. http://janiasea.blogspot.com/2012/12/...
Apr 23, 2012
Elizabeth
added it
I couldn't get into this at all. The novelist's perspective and analysis of other writers within the first few pages of the book did not work for me. Someone used the word pedantic, which fits. But i didn't really give it a chance...didn't even pass 25 pages.
Could not get into it. It was like taking an English lit course and not being able to talk back to the teacher. I love Ann Beatty but she should stick to her memoirs of the 70s and humor writing. Pedantic and confusing and just off the wall at points.
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Ann Beattie (born September 8, 1947) is an American short story writer and novelist. She has received an award for excellence from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and a PEN/Bernard Malamud Award for excellence in the short story form. Her work has been compared to that of Alice Adams, J.D. Salinger, John Cheever, and John Updike. She holds an undergraduate degree from Americ...more
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