Books
BY MICHAEL J. BANDLER
Check out our picks of this month’s page-turners.
White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters Robert Schlesinger
(Simon & Schuster, 592 pages, $30)
William Safire, the master wordsmith who segued from the Nixon White House to a columnist’s berth at The New York Times, defines the role of presidential speechwriter not as policy-setter, but as “only an articulation aide whose highest duty is to reflect the desires of the President and his expert advisers.” If only it were so simple, author Robert Schlesinger repeatedly asks in this comprehensive overview, dappled with juicy anecdotes and revealing insights. Lifting the curtain on the people who have created and molded texts that, in turn, etched the popular images of chief executives from FDR on, he presents this art as generally collaborative, depending, obviously, on the predilections—and vision—of the Oval Office occupants themselves. The pattern has been uneven—from Roosevelt’s highborn style and stirring eloquence to Harry Truman’s affectionate “plain speaking”—and the techniques have differed.
Along the way—as policymakers, advisers and speechwriters worked either together or at cross-purposes—global milestones arrived, media and technology evolved, and speechwriters themselves became more visible to the general public. However, the author cautions, authorship invariably is trumped by the president’s ownership of his words, “not only because he will be held responsible for them, but because to suggest otherwise risks the possibility that he may not.”
Skeletons at the Feast Chris Bohjalian
(Shaye Areheart Books, 384 pages, $25)
You never know what Chris Bohjalian has in store for you. Open his novels, and you’ll find yourself immersed in up-to-the-minute medical or legal issues, 19th-century American history or, perhaps, the secrets embedded in a box of photographs. This time, he has selected an expansive canvas—middle Europe in the closing days of World War II—on which he’s painted a lush romance, reflecting resilience in the face of nearly certain tragedy. Th e beleaguered members of an East Prussian family are the central figures as they flee westward before the oncoming Russian army. In their company is a Scottish POW who was a forced laborer on their farm. Trailing alongside, posing as a German officer, is a Jewish fugitive from a death camp train. In part, Bohjalian came up with the plot after reading the unpublished wartime diary of the great-grandmother of one of his daughter’s kindergarten classmates. Meshing that with the historical record, he has written a trenchant epic that is both agonizing and enriching.
The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company David A. Price
(Knopf, 304 pages, $28)
What a difference a generation makes.
Less than 30 years ago, a computer-graphic animated film was barely a gleam in the eyes of a handful of visionaries, scattered on university campuses and makeshift facilities across America. Today, the makers of Ratatouille clutch an Oscar while saluting Pixar. David Price’s chronicle of the animation studio’s rapid ascent from computer hardware firm to award-winning film company affords readers a rainbow of insights—on personalities, technology, business and basic storytelling—that fused into one of the more exhilarating success stories of present-day Hollywood. The intricacies of computerization are extensively detailed, along with the clashes between executives of venerable Hollywood studios and Pixar’s leaders, John Lasseter and Steve Jobs. With Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Th e Incredibles, it’s quite clear who the winners are: kids (and adults!) of all ages, around the world.