The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington

by Robert D. Novak

Long before Robert Novak became the center of a political firestorm in the Valerie Plame CIA leak scandal, he had established himself as one of the finest—and most controversial—political reporters in America. Now, in this sweeping, monumental memoir, Novak offers the first full account of his involvement in that affair, while also revealing the fascinating story of his remarkable life and career. This is a singular journey through a half century of stories, scandals, and personal encounters with Washington’s most powerful and colorful people.

Novak has been a Washington insider since the days when the place was a sleepy southern town and journalism was built on shoe leather and the ability to cultivate and keep sources (not to mention the ability to hold one’s liquor). He has covered every president since Truman, known (personally and professionally) virtually all the big movers and shakers in D.C., and broken a number of the biggest stories—the Plame story, we see here, being far from the most important. In this book, he puts it all into perspective. He also reveals the extraordinary transformations that have fundamentally remade Washington, politics, and journalism—and his own role in those transformations.

Moving beyond the “first draft of history” that is daily journalism, Novak can at last tell the stories behind the stories. He vividly recalls encounters with the Kennedys (angry meetings with Bobby, a scary ride home in Jack’s convertible), his unusual relationship with Lyndon Johnson (who hosted Novak’s wedding reception and who, “drunk as a loon,” had to be carried out of a bar by the young newsman), a decidedly odd off-the-record lunch with Ronald Reagan, and his first meetings with George W. Bush—at which the veteran journalist seriously underestimated the future president. We meet other fascinating characters as well, from Deng Xiaoping to Ted Turner to Ezra Pound.

Writing with bracing candor, Novak tells us how politics and journalism truly operate at the highest levels, both publicly and behind closed doors. He is equally open about his private experience. He writes frankly about the days when his drinking reflected too closely the boozy ways of the town. He acknowledges times when his job took precedence over his family. He is reflective about his political journey to the right. And he writes more personally than ever before about his spiritual journey, from his early life as a secular Jew to his conversion to Catholicism at the age of sixty-seven.

Packed with riveting, never-before-told stories, The Prince of Darkness is a hugely entertaining and equally perceptive view of fifty years in the life of Washington and the people who cover it.

Genres: Politics, Biography, Nonfiction, History, Journalism, Memoir, American History

672 pages, Hardcover

First published July 10, 2007

About the author

Robert David Sanders "Bob" Novak is a conservative American political commentator and journalist who writes the longest-running current U.S. syndicated political column (45 years, as of February 2008). Over his 45 year career, Bob Novak has become well-known as a columnist (writing Inside Report since 1963) and as a television personality (appearing on many shows for CNN, most notably on three former programs, The Capital Gang, Crossfire, and Evans, Novak, Hunt, and Shields). His memoirs, entitled Prince of Darkness: Fifty Years Reporting in Washington, were published in July 2007 by Crown Forum, a division of Random House. "Prince of Darkness" was a nickname given to Novak by his friend, the reporter John Lindsay, "because [Lindsay] thought for a young man I took a very dim view of the prospects for our civilization." Novak said in an interview.

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

After four years of trying, I have finally finished The Prince of Darkness by Robert Novak.
That’s saying something.
It normally does not take me four years to finish a book. In fact, it rarely takes me more than a week if I’m busy. I began this book because this guy recommended it to my Dad. Being an ambitious kid, I decided to pick it up. And I enjoyed it. A lot. But, if you hadn’t noticed, it’s a little bit thick. It’s a little bit dry. It’s, frankly, just a little bit intimidating. I would get it from the library, make it through several chapters, and then return it. When the fancy struck me to read it again, I’d get it from the library, forget where I was last time, and start from the beginning again.
This was the book that inspired me to begin political blogs with my friend. It was the book that interested me in journalism. It opened up history in a way I’d never thought to view it before, and for that it is fascinating. Yesterday, I sat down with The Prince of Darkness and began at page one. Today I finished it. That is 639 pages.
In this book, Novak explores a lifetime of journaling, including his fifty years in Washington DC. It is both a personal memoir and a political treatise. In his own words, Novak describes the book as “my personal experience as a columnist and a commentator, my interactions with the famous and powerful, and the nation’s political developments over those fifty years (including the historical political realignment).” Between side comments about his drinking, financial situation, and personal details is a wealth of political knowledge. Novak remembers when FDR was president. That’s a long time. His personal experience with presidents, senators, newspapermen, and aids provide a well-spring on politics and human behavior.
Some of the politicians I easily recognized. Ford, Carter, Reagan, Goldwater are all fairly big names! I enjoyed his commentary on people like Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum (did he guess they’d run for president? xD). The 2000 election between President Bush and Al Gore was the first election I actively campaigned in (I was 7 or 8) and I remember seeing then Governor Bush speak. That is history I know. I liked seeing how things panned out in DC.
But, glancing farther back, this book is a terrific history lesson. I love Novak’s description of people. I love his nickname (Prince of Darkness). Most of all, I love reading about the politics going on during a time now consigned to the history books. After all, I can read about President Kennedy or Dr. King in my textbooks. They get a nice paragraph or two or maybe a chapter if they’re lucky. To read about what they were actually like though, to get the opinion of a man standing in the crowd during Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech is an entirely neat experience. It breathes life into the recent past. I mean, Lyndon B. Johnson hosted his wedding reception!
A big theme in the book is Novak’s exonerating himself from the Valerie Plame Affair. I personally have no recollection of this and so I am in no position to judge whether or not he does it fairly. But, it provides an interesting glimpse into the working of the media. Though he doesn’t specifically draw the conclusion/theme, there is a fascinating line from where Novak began in early DC where he would be invited to mingle with prominent politicians to the end, where a liberal new media berates him for refusing to identify a source.
Washington DC experienced a great deal of change in fifty years. He talks about political realignment, key battleground states, and the masterminds “begin the politicians.” His writing is often dry, tending towards his columnist nature, but still fascinating. I wouldn’t recommend reading it all in one sitting.
Because it is a memoir, Novak carries with him his own prejudices. He often mentions his prejudice (for example, against McLaughlin) but not always. Because of this, I’d recommend reading the book with a grain of salt. He often makes comments about how he criticized the Bush administration and was not their lapdog. Obviously, someone accused him of being a Bush lapdog and he didn’t like it.
I have a ton of respect for his wife Geraldine. She sure put up with a lot from Novak! Always traveling, arriving home late, and hardly getting to know his kids…she must be a remarkable woman. I also wonder what his kids think of him. While Novak mentions his daughter Zelda with affection and pride, his son goes almost unmentioned in comparison. A brilliant career like Novak’s often comes at a price.
Though his discussion of his conversion to Catholicism is not lengthy, I found it fascinating. I love his comment about the Holy Spirit. He doesn’t preach about his conversion. In fact, it would be easy to miss it. But it illustrates a part of the man Novak became in later life. He was a man who rarely missed a day of work, and after breaking his hip, had an article on the press for Monday. That just blows my mind. He was truly a remarkable, once-in-a-life-time sort of person.
When Robert Novak died, I was the only one of my friends who knew who he was. Though he made a huge impact in the DC area, his memory fades. He “darkened” DC for over fifty years and made quite the impact on history. The scoops he revealed in his paper made and destroyed politicians for years. The opportunity to glance at a lifetime of knowledge through his eyes is truly cool one.
Would I recommend The Prince of Darkness? Absolutely. In fact, I would go so far as to urge buying a copy of the book. It isn’t something you just read once and are satisfied. It takes digging into. There is so much history, commentary, wisdom in these pages. It ought to be bought for every political science major. It should be given to every teenager with an inclination to go into political journalism. It is an interesting read, not only about the politics of the United States since FDR, but about life and career. It is books like these that are vastly more interesting and effective in learning about history than textbooks, in my opinion. He comes with biases, sure, but at least he is generally open about them. And if you are anything like me, reading something like this only spurs you to read more.
And so, to my fellow Generation Joshua political nerds, and to people with an inclination for politics in general, I recommend this book. It is an insider’s memoir. It projects a time long past. It is, in conclusion, a very worthy read.

[Ruza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Political buffs and nerds, this is the perfect book. The stories are amazing and Robert Novak is just incredibly smart, articulate, funny and what a wonderful story teller he is and what a memory he had. It's amazing how long his career spanned in the political and reporting world. His passion for politics and reporting the truth is astounding and so refreshing. In our day in age of gadgets, satellites, ipads, iphones, you name it we can get the news within seconds, but the news these days is filled with pseudo reporters and folks who are biased and no longer abide by the neutral code that the media did in generations past. This book was bitter sweet because of his passing. This is a guy that suffered from cancer a few times, had his share of accidents and still he walked away unscathed and stronger then ever. It's a long read, but if you're a political dweeb, you'll coast through this book. Once I picked it up this book, I found it difficult to put down. It reminds me of the Page Six column of the NY Post or E News daily, it reveals juicy political details and it delves into certain politicans personalities from days past, which was highly entertaining. Overall, I loved this book very much.

[Benjamin Wetmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

What's remarkable about this biography is the gritting detail it offers - full of information you know you aren't meant to know, which becomes a statement about Novak's life that becomes the true memoir: that he sought to free information and project information to a public when all the other government and journalistic sources sought to contain, seal and protect the information.

Whereas the firefighters in Fahrenheit 451 sought to burn books instead of put out the fires, modern journalists set out to seal information rather than project it. Novak is perhaps from a different age, but certainly of a different mindset. And this is certainly no conservative canard, he goes out of his way to point out information equally distressing to any ideological viewpoint. Novak holds out his facts and gives them to the reader not to advance his agenda but to put information in our hands that we need.

I remember well all the hoopla around the Valerie Plame episode, and it was enlightening solely for the way in which it demonstrated the hypocrisy within the press corps, whose devotion to the first amendment disappeared, and Novak's career was savaged because any criticism of the those criticizing the war were evil - even though, hilariously, Novak had always opposed the war for far more consistent philosophical reasons than any of his detractors. And yet that whole episode becomes a distraction to Novak's reporting career, yet he outlines it admirably in the book.

This review is beginning to sound like a cheerleading session for Novak, and it isn't meant as such. One can view Novak as a completely awful person and still love this book for the degree of revelatory information provided. It should reset the bar on which information is revealed in memoirs, and the degree to which they truly give their readers the facts.

The most striking moment in the book, for me, was when Novak describes an assistant FBI director who predicted his assassination months later, and whose accuracy was almost spot on, and that no one was ever charged in his supposedly accidental death. With that moment Novak shows us a moment of the real Washington, where so many of the ideas that serve as the political facade come home, and the three trillion dollars that flows through the city comes into light: he gave us a moment behind the curtain at Oz and dared to do so despite the eventual cries of 'conspiracy theorist!' or similar pejoratives.

Novak is a real reporter, and one unafraid to convey what he knows. His memoir is incredible, and a great read.

[Chris Schaffer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good, but I wish Novak had written this, say, right after Dubya was elected and before 9/11 and the broadside from younger conservatives like David Frum and others and before the Plame affair. Plus, he was kind of dinosaur by the 2000s although he was still a dogged reporter. But the time between the late 1950s to 2000 is excellent and very informative of the JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush I presidencies. Less so on Clinton. Excellent on Gingrich. Novak is a generally negative person and he’s predictably negative in his assessments of people, and presidencies throughout. Great stuff on his international reporting. A slog but worthwhile.

[Brent USA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Columnist and commentator Robert Novak chronicles fifty years of our nation's political development from Eisenhower to the re-election of George W. Bush. He tells the leaks and names the leakers.
He describes engrossing behind the scenes encounters with LBJ, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, James Baker, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, among many others.
Novak pulls no punches. He tells the good, the bad, and the ugly about the famous and powerful of Washington, politicians and journalists, enemies, friends, and former friends. His personal insights into flawed characters such as Howard Baker, Gerald Ford, Bob Dole, David Stockman, Paul Volcker, Newt Gingrich, John McLaughlin, Bill Kristol, Rich Lowry, Richard Armitage, and the CNN suits are fascinating.
Then there is the Plame affair. Novak details his interrogations by the FBI, Patrick Fitzgerald, and his testimony before the grand jury. His personal assessment of Joseph C. Wilson IV is priceless.
Novak narrates his autobiography as an only child growing up in a working class family in Illinois, through college at the University of Illinois, and on to Washington. He describes his career ascent in journalism, unintended partnership with Rowland Evans, private business, and television. He relates his development into a conservative. He recounts his personal triumphs and failings. His first marriage ended early in divorce, but his second (and last) was quite fruitful. He survived alcoholism, three battles with different cancers, two broken hips, and spinal meningitis with a stroke, which he kept secret. Raised a secular Jew, he converted later in life to Roman Catholicism. Throughout the book, he chronicles his personal wealth and income, something I haven't seen before by an author, but which I greatly appreciate. Finally, he recites how he voted in each presidential election.
The book is 662 pages, paired down from the original 1400. There are forty-six chapters, each of which can be easily read in one sitting. The prose is quite readable and riveting.
I highly recommend.

[Thomas Radigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book title comes from the nickname given to the author to reflect his personality. Actually, he was not as gloomy as all that, despite the adversity and injustice he suffered.

Novak opens by describing how he had been falsely accused of "outing" a CIA operative, and what really happened, then goes on to describe his ancestry and family history, how he came from a family of secular Jews, how he always wanted to be a reporter, how he involved himself initially in college newspaper reporting before getting into professional journalism, how he met longtime partner Rowland Evans, his failed first marriage and his far more successful second marriage. He is open about his faults, such as his neglecting his family for his career, his drinking and bad driving problems, his foolish mistakes in dealing with various people.

Having covered Washington D. C. from the Eisenhower era, he gives his assessments of various presidents and other politicians, as well as ranking bureaucrats and people in the news media, how he got into television, his misjudgments of certain people, and his befriending and falling out with a number of others, He dispels a number of myths: Goldwater was an inept politician, Nixon was not a conservative, Ford was unprepared for the Presidency, Jimmy Carter was not a well-intentioned saint (confirmed already by other people I've read), Newt Gingrich failed to follow through on his intended reform of the government, and so forth.

Also covered is his own journalistic and television career, and his various dealings and fights with the people involved, including his partner Rowland Evans, plus the legal problems he faced, and not just with the Plame affair. If you want to learn about late 20th Century American federal government history, this is the book that explains much.

[Kevin English · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those interested an insider’s account of 50 years of US political history, this memoir is a must read.

The narrative is well constructed. Rather than being a linear timeline, each chapter covers a topic, surrounding events, columns the author wrote, gossip and perspectives. Starting during the Eisenhower administration, it traces Novak’s evolution from a young man who voted for Kennedy in 1960 and LBJ in 1964 that found his salvation in Ronald Reagan. He didn’t seem to have a bad word to say about the 40th prez.

What followed was his disappointment with Reagan’s republican predecessors: Bush 41, Dole, Gingrich and Bush 43. He concludes with his slow banishment by the neoconservatives and his long term employer, CNN.

His eventual isolation from the mainstream GOP made me wonder if one purpose of this book is score settling and payback. He does not hide the fact that he is extremely bitter about Joe Wilson’s attacks on him during the Plame Affair when he could not fight back because of a federal investigation.

I had a feeling of sadness while reading parts of this book. The amount of backstabbing and betrayal revealed is astounding. It doesn’t seem like something normal people would want to tolerate.

It will be interesting to see what Novak’s legacy will be in 20-30 years. Unlike William Buckley whose National Review magazine carries on or George Will whose memory is solidified by ties to Cato, Robert Novak was a journalist and commentator. His contribution was breaking stories and getting scoops. However his long commitment to conservative ideas should not be forgotten.

[Thomas Rumeau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting life story of a conservative journalist in DC spanning several decades. If you really want to dig deeper into the intrigue of each presidential election since JFK and read about the changing media landscape, this book is for you.

Robert Novak goes through his experience dealing with each president since JFK going through each president until George W Bush. He participated in all the campaigns and he provides great historical insight. A big part of the book details his career in the media from his early start as student journalist to his later career where he had several weekly shows with CNN. You can read about the rise of CNN and then Fox News.

It took me a little bit of time to start this book as I was not very acquainted with Robert Novak but as I got into the rhythm I really enjoyed the stories and the challenges that Novak had to deal with. I am really impressed by his work and I think that he did a good job describing his professional as well as some of his personal life.

[Bill Berg · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://beingbeliefbehavior.blogspot....

[David Marko · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are a political junkie then this book is a must read. A true page turner!

[Glen Asbury · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had read this book twice before and enjoyed it even more the third time than I did the other two. I had forgotten so much of his wit and stories. One of my all-time favorite memoirs.

[Chip Hunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most honest and heart-felt memoirs I've ever come across. The book reads like a hybrid autobiography-political history. Interspersed with interesting and entertaining insights into political wrangling are Novak's most memorable and personal moments. Occasionally painfully honest accounts of meetings and discussions with political leaders of the highest profile (from both the left and the right) shed fascinating light on the sometimes unpleasant way that Washington is run. Novak's personal take on every president's character sine JFK is remarkably enlightening, and for a young political enthusiast like me helped to put recent happenings into the broader picture.

While I didn't really expect this to be the most exciting book to read, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself fully engrossed by Novak's account of his life in D.C. He doesn't hold back from admitting (and sometimes vividly recounting) his foibles and follies, and never claims to be a better person than he is. The honesty displayed here is extremely refreshing, as Novak in no way tries to make himself larger or more important than in reality. The only time the book adopts a somewhat bitter tone is in the sections about the Plame affair, which have understandably been driving him up the wall for the past four years.

Novak's involvement in the Valerie Plame affair is detailed here in totality for the first time. Very interesting stuff that effectively demolishes Wilson's and Plame's accusations and shows that the whole episode was ballooned by anti-Bush sentiment among the media and the Democratic party. This part of the book is by no means the most interesting or important, and in fact takes up only two chapters out of about thirty.

Bob Novak has been ridiculed, threatened, and condemned (just see some of the reviews on Amazon) by the extreme left and the extreme right for two simple reasons: he tells the truth and he doesn't refrain from displaying his own opinions and views. Additionally, he has been instrumental in influencing policies and the viewpoints of his readers. Political correctness is not something you'll hear people applaud or condemn him for. Brutal honesty is what he is known for, and that is what you get in this book.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Novak was famously disagreeable and curmudgeonly, so much so that one of his acquaintances stopped inviting him to dinner parties, calling him “the Prince of Darkness”. With this outstanding memoir, Novak owns that sobriquet, and demonstrates why he was one of the best political reporters in Washington DC for nearly fifty years.

In this book, Novak begins with his role in the Valarie Plame affair, and then backtracks to talk about how he became a reporter, and later how he partnered with Rowland Evans. While for many years, Evans & Novak provided the inside scoop on what was happening in Washington, the content of their reportage was always more important than the fact that they had a newspaper column.

In this sense, Novak does not at all disappoint the reader, for while he does talk about his partnership with Evans and his career as a journalist, the heart of this book is his interaction with the personalities in Washington DC, beginning with John F. Kennedy, continuing on through the Reagan revolution, and then ending with the Bush administration. The book provides a front row seat to many historical events, giving us an insider’s view to what was happening.

Of course, Novak was an uncompromising conservative, albeit one with sometimes unconventional beliefs. In this regard, Novak’s autobiography provides a helpful survey of the history of the modern conservative movement, and how it evolved during his time in Washington DC. Novak’s observations regarding Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich are particularly insightful.

All in all, this is an excellent book for political junkies, and a must-read for conservatives.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is it possible to say that something was a long, hard slog, but in a good way? This is a massive tome--almost 700 pages--but to cover 50 years of political history, you need a high page count. This work is an interesting combination of autobiography (of the writer, obviously), biography (of virtually every major political player since Truman), history and political gossip. In fact, I think you could probably get a reasonable primer on modern American history just by reading this.

I had never read anything by Novak before this, so I came into this with pretty much no preconceived ideas. I had heard Novak described most often as "mean spirited" (the "Prince of Darkness" being a nickname assigned to him by others, not chosen by himself), but after reading his work I think that "brutally honest" is a better assessment. He does not pull his punches, even with himself, and admits to his mistakes with (almost) no excuses. There's no doubt the man is arrogant, but there's also no doubt that after everything he's done, he's earned the right to be a little full of himself. It's well written and highly readable, but there is a LOT of it; this definitely can't be read in long settings, but has to be digested a chapter or two at a time.

[Marty Acks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was on my parent's bookshelf. That caused me to read it.

I did enjoy the book, but it is probably not for everyone. This voyeuristic memoir plods through Novak's 50+ year career. It is long and full of anecdotes about a wide cast of political characters. He is an interesting character himself, at one moment arrogant and the next revealing of professional and personal faults that many would be reluctant to share.

The one thing that kept growing on me as I read this book was how narcissistic, conniving, and self serving nearly every source is. It validated my own opinions about the nature of the profession as you move out of the local arena.

The Valerie Plame affair bookends this tome. Novak takes no blame for the outing of Plame as a CIA agent. in Novak's take Peter Fitzgerald's grand jury found no fault. Also, the the CIA simply said it would be inconvenient if her employment were revealed. They did not identify her as an undercover agent when contacted by Novak.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a solid memoir reflecting over a long career of investigative journalism in Washington, DC. Its especially refreshing because of Novak's candor and the fact that he wants to name names and, if not settle score, at least male sure that his side of the story gets out. Novak does, occasionally, sound a bit cranky, and its amazing how many people he is no longer on speaking terms with. Although he attributes this largely to ideology, there is no escaping the conclusion that Novak is a difficult character. On the other hand, his willingness to expose himself as honestly as he does lends a certain credibility when he lampoons others.

If you dont follow politics, my guess if this book would be a huge bore. But for those of us who do, it is telling and insightful -- about the author, his times, and his subjects.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at the career of a consummate Washington insider -- whose column I have read religiously for 10 years. The insider tidbits are as delicious as one would expect, but Novak also gives a surprisingly candid personal account of his life, warts and all, as a DC workaholic. Anyone with an interest in national politics of the last 50 years will find much to enjoy here. Those who have worked in DC and watched Crossfire, Capital Gang, McLaughlin Group, etc. are in for a special treat. Unlike many self-portraits of this genre, The Prince of Darkness moves fast and is full of humor. Hearing about a young Bob Novak taking a swing at Mark Shields, or an old Bob Novak taking a swing at some left-wing nut (is there any other kind?) in New Hampshire, is just plain fun. Haven't enjoyed a book this much in a while, highly recommended for the right (capital "R") audience.

[Paul SHane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a behind the scenes glimpse of Washington politics from Kennedy to G.W. Bush. Interestingly Novak, considered a right wing commentator later in his career, was a fan of Kennedy and Reagan but not Johnson, Ford, Carter, H.W.Bush, Clinton, G.W. Bush. You find out why in this book...with some of the dislike due to Novak's own harsh reporting.

I think the most enlightening aspect is to learn how the press is used by all sides in D.C. by intentionally leaking stories in order to gain an upper hand or ruin the opposition. It was a little depressing learning about how even presidential administrations sometimes acted like High Schoolers in spreading roomer or tearing down opposition.

It is a long book but it covers a lot of ground and you are sure to learn more about the Presidents you love or hate.

[David Bunnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I sometimes liked Robert Novak and often agreed with him. I also have often disagreed and thought he was a little pompus. He is still a little pompus, but I love this book. Novak evokes the best and worst of the golden age of journalism. Nowadays, with everyone (including adolescent Hollywood actors) claiming to be journalists, Novak shows us what a real journalist was all about. Highly recommended.

[Baxter · Rating 4 out of 5]

An outstanding autobiography - long, though very conversational. I liked this book because: I have always like Bob Novak; I am a conservative; I love American history and I very much am drawn to the narratives on American politics (here 50 years worth - most of my life). I'd say you need at least three of these characteristics to enjoy the book as much as I did!

[Tom Stamper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Novak's book is thorough and yet well-told that is feels much shorter than it's 600+ pages. It's a whole life boiled down to the essentials and this guy just does not care to hold anything back. He will tell you why John McGlaughlin is an egomaniac bore and why CNN was great in the early days. And much more.

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Novak’s memoir covers his life from 1957 working for the Associated Press, through his 30-year partnership with Rowly Evans, and is bookended by the Plame affair. It’s very engaging, making you feel as much an insider as he dared as a conservative writer in a congenitally liberal town.

[Brent · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a gift from Joseph. Novak unfortunately passed away last year, after I had started this fine autobiographical book. Novak provides insight into national politics and politicians, and political commentators in the public media.

[Daniel Beutler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very entertaining. Whether the author's high opinion of himself was justified, well...inconclusive, but it was an obstacle to thoroughly enjoying this book. But good historical perspective and worthwhile insider anecdotes. Sure, they're true; they're all true!

[Don McNay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to be part of a program with Bob Novak as he was promoting this book. The opposite of his public persona, he was a terrific gentlemen and the book is a great, candid and fascinating biography of a man who made history along with writing about it.

[Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't finish this book. It felt like I was reading a political version of People magazine. Some very interesting stories, but mostly political gossip.

[Liviu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rarely read current political books but while I do not agree always with Mr. Novak, I like his style and political reporting and his memoir was quite interesting

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is hard to like Robert Novak (even when he is describing himself), but this is a fascinating book. I am enjoying reliving our history over the last 50 years.

[Nathan Foy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun. Novak has 50 years of inside baseball in DC. Read if you like politics. Great firsthand accounts of Carter, Reagan, Nixon. Novak calls em like he sees em and doesn't care what others think.

[Thomas D Sinex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Damn fine book about a interesting life...