Watergate by Thomas Mallon

If the world worked as it should, Tom Mallon's fizzy, madcap tale of a Jazz Age men's magazine Bandbox would have seen the champagne sales and rich movie deal of Tom Rachman's recent newspaper novel The Imperfectionists [Kindle]. Now Mallon deserves for fate to flip his way: Following the flop of Ann Beattie's comeback book Mrs. Nixon, maybe America's most literary historical novelist will score a breakaway bestseller with his new novel, Watergate [Kindle], which has earned terrific early reviews.

Readers wary of revisiting the Nixon era through the eyes of a self-confessed Republican writer will be reassured to find, as the WSJ says, "The most perceptive and wittiest members of Mr. Mallon's cast are the women." Specifically, says the NYT, "the book’s uncontested star is Alice Roosevelt Longworth... who is never at a loss for a scorching one-liner. 'I believe she’s to be released back into the wild after the benediction,' she says of the singer Ethel Merman." The LAT says, "as Joan Kennedy bends to kiss the old woman's cheek, Longworth recoils: 'That's why I usually wear a wide-brimmed hat.'"  Are we not all counting the minutes until a videographer compiles the ultimate quipfest pitting the Dowager Countess of Grantham's worst against Alice Longworth's most withering?

Watergate is Mallon's first fiction since his only gay novel, the McCarthy era Fellow Travelers. Can't wait to see if he's continued to include queer content in his work.