ell, by the time these book reviews
come out, I will probably be behind the times. Depending
on how John Edwards does (did) this (last) Tuesday,
we will either still have a race on our hands or
John Kerry, the heavy favorite, will be the next
Democratic Party nominee for president of the United
States. Personally, I hope Edwards exceeds expectations
and does well on Super Tuesday, the 10-state primary
contest, which is destined to make or break Edwards’ campaign.
I want Edwards to succeed not because I don’t
want to look ridiculous, but because his book, Four
Trials, was a very, very good read.
Four Trials
John Edwards
Simon and Schuster
237 pages
$24 hardcover
John Edwards’ Four Trials chronicles the senator’s
early years as a young lawyer in North Carolina.
Focusing on, as the title suggests, four specific
trials that have shaped his career as a lawyer and
a senator, the book also provides insight on Edwards
as a person and the difficulty growing up the poor
son of a mill worker. The book is divided into four
sections, each one named after the clients or victims
Edwards represented (“E.G.,” “Jennifer,” “Josh” and “Valerie.”)
As he’s discussing these trials, Edwards digresses
into various aspects of his life, including his childhood,
raising a family and various other “trials,” including
the death of his son Wade, who died in a car accident.
Four Trials is not the
kind of book one would expect a man running for president
would write. In fact, there is literally no mention
of his run for president. Not in the book jacket,
the preface, or the afterword— nowhere.
This may lead one to suspect that he didn’t
know he was going to run for president when the book
was written. But the book was published on Dec. 1,
2003 and the copyright notice says 2004. Edwards
began his presidential race in January of 2003. It’s
weird to think that someone running for president
wouldn’t at least have a “by the way,
I’m running for president” somewhere
in his book. He rarely even mentions that he is a
senator now, which leads me to believe that the book
was either initially written as a “how-to” for
up-and-coming lawyers or possibly adapted from Edwards’ diary
or something.
Another way Four Trials is a book you wouldn’t
expect a presidential candidate to write is in its
quality. It’s actually a very well-written,
engaging and beautiful book that chronicles not only
Edwards’s victories, but some of his mistakes
and moments of weakness. I actually ended up reading
the book in one sitting, which I almost never do
anymore, especially with nonfiction. In fact, I think
the last nonfiction book I read in one sitting was
If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor
by Bruce Campbell. I would honestly recommend Four
Trials to anyone, whether he or she has an interest
in politics or not. It has as much drama and human
emotion as any novel by John Grisham.
Of course, Edwards didn’t completely write
the book himself. Some of the more intriguing parts
of the book are merely transcripts from the trials.
I can only assume some of Four Trials’ more
spectacular passages were written by John Auchard,
who co-wrote the book with Edwards. Only a professor
of English at the University of Maryland and editor
of The Portable Henry James could write passages
like the concluding paragraph of the “Jennifer” section.
Jennifer is a young girl who, thanks to the mistakes
a doctor made at the hospital, was born with cerebral
palsy and lives a day-to-day struggle to speak or
even stand on her own two feet. The Jennifer section
concludes:
“And when the case was over, I returned to my
life in Raleigh, to my family. My daughter Cate was
now three, the same age Jennifer had been when I met
her. As I sat in the amphitheater at the Rose Garden
that spring, I watched Cate in pink tights, leaping
and twirling with her classmates in Arts Together,
but I could not forget the image of Jennifer, struggling
at three to master standing at that startling corner
feeder in the playpen. And she mastered it. And I thought:
there is, in this world, more than one form of grace.”
Good stuff, but did Edwards really write that? I
suppose it doesn’t matter. If Edwards was smart
enough to hire a talented gun like Auchard, he deserves
at least some credit.
One thing that is strikingly lacking in Four Trials
is a representation of the candidate’s views
on any political issues. Other than a crack here
and there against corporations and Republicans, Four
Trials’ main focus is on the court cases and
the family mishaps that have shaped his life. The
book ends in the short period of time after his son
Wade’s death (April, 1996) and just before
he begins his campaign for U.S. Senate (in 1998).
I have never seen a political book so full of heart
and so devoid of politics.
Which leads me to Kerry’s book. Although A
Call to Service has plenty of heart (in the “we
can make this world a better place” way), it’s
also chock-full of politics. Kerry’s stance
on almost every issue under the sun is explored and
explained. This is a guy who most definitely has
his eyes on the White House.
A Call to Service
John Kerry
Viking Press
202 pages
$24.95 hardcover
As
the Man Who Would Be President, current democratic
front-runner John Kerry’s A Call to Service
reads like a 200-page résumé for the
job of Commander in Chief. Since it sometimes reads
like a laundry list of the Massachusetts senator’s
stance on various issues from education to the environment
to fightin’ terrorism, it’s a little
difficult to review A Call to Service as a book— especially
if you don’t agree with a few of Kerry’s
policies. I found myself begging for an anecdote
or a story to shake things up and get away from Kerry’s
policy-o-matic, especially after reading the John
Edwards book.
Funny that these candidates— who,
from what I gather, have startlingly similar political
views— would
write two completely different books during the campaign
season. In a way, Kerry’s book has the exact
opposite problem of Four Trials. Edwards’ book
is almost all autobiography and raises almost no
political issues, while Kerry’s book is nothing
but issues. He does not talk about his experiences
in Vietnam (surprisingly), nor does he talk about
why he decided to protest against the war. The only
time Kerry actually tells an entertaining story is
in the preface, when he talks about meeting Sen.
John McCain for the first time. I’ll give you
a hint as to what they talk about: It starts with
a V and ends in “ietnam.”
Kerry’s book, for all its lack of autobiographical
elements, is written in a simple language that the
average Joe can understand. It’s clear that
Kerry wants to come across as just your typical,
everyday Massachusetts senator who used to chill
with President Kennedy on his yacht and married the
heiress to the Heinz ketchup fortune. He even mentions
that he was one of the first members of a Massachusetts
NASCAR fan club.
If Kerry is going to
try to out good old boy George W. Bush, he’s
going to have an uphill road to the presidency. And
if he wants people to think of him as a normal guy,
he should put a little more life— his life— into
his books. I counted exactly one moment in the book
that made Kerry seem at least human (talking about
an event in the early ’80s,
Kerry begins “[My wife] and I were separated
at the time…”) and one moment that showed
he had a sense of humor (using his experience of
recovering from prostate cancer to discuss health-care
reform, Kerry contends that “…you haven’t
lived until you’ve watched C-SPAN on drugs.”
Although Kerry makes it clear what his position is
on many issues, it makes you wonder if you can really
trust him. I’m not talking about the fact that
the book leaves you not knowing much about Kerry
the man. Kerry rails on the current president for
short-changing America in No Child Left Behind, for
infringing on America’s civil liberties with
the Patriot Act and for showing the world what kind
of bully he can be with Operation Iraqi Freedom.
However, Kerry downplays, as well he should, the
fact that he supported each and every one of the
Bush policies I just mentioned. So can Kerry come
through with his big talk and make some changes in
this country? Well, I wonder if he even really wants
to.
I believe you can tell a lot about a presidential
candidate by what book he or she puts out for the
campaign season, which is why I wanted to start this
series of book reviews in the first place.
From what I’ve seen in the debates, advertisements
and sound bites from each candidate this election,
the books of John Kerry and John Edwards perfectly
represent how they come across on the campaign trail.
Edwards is exciting, passionate and not terribly
bad to look at. At the same time, however, we don’t
know what he stands for, save that he wants to be “the
candidate for regular folks.” John Kerry, on
the other hand, as a person and as an author, has
plenty of ideas, most of them good and clear, and
admirable stances on issues (or so he claims). However,
his attempts at making himself look like “one
of us,” (to paraphrase “The Simpsons”)
smacks of effort.
So what’s my conclusion? Simple. Hire a mad
scientist to transplant John Kerry’s policies
with John Edwards’ personality. He would have
John Kerry’s “electability” and
John Edwards’ hip Southern accent. And the
best part? We could just call him John.
John for president.
jordan@red-mag.com
