Favorite Thomas Mallon historical fiction?
I very much enjoy the historical/political fiction of this old queen.
Yes, I know he was a repug, but he’s still a great writer. Absolutely loved Finale, enjoyed Watergate as well. (And Up With the Sun, although it’s not political.)
What’s your favorite of the remaining nonfiction? I’m going to read one after finishing my current read and maybe DL can help me choose.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 18 | July 7, 2025 11:09 PM
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He’s an absolutely terrible person. Quite frankly, the only way that photographer could get that guy to smile like that is to have him watching a woman being being denied her access to health care.
by Anonymous | reply 1 | July 6, 2025 11:26 PM
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Left the Republican Party upon Trump's election.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 2 | July 6, 2025 11:51 PM
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Mallon is a rightwing, conniving gay republican who's still rightwing, even if he hates Trump. Mallon was hated at Brown by his classmates, reviled at Harvard as well.
Why do good things happen to bad people?
by Anonymous | reply 3 | July 6, 2025 11:53 PM
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My favorite of his is Henry & Clara — a haunting novel.
by Anonymous | reply 4 | July 7, 2025 12:00 AM
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I welcome all Trump haters in my circle.
by Anonymous | reply 5 | July 7, 2025 12:20 AM
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I loved his two apolitical novels Bandbox (about the comic goings-on at a 1920s Esquire-like men's magazine) and Up With the Sun (about the life and death of a real life C list TV actor).
But while I recognize him as an intelligent novelist, his other books require more knowledge than I possess of the particular historical/political time period he's writing in. I've tried reading several of them but usually become quickly lost, Fellow Travelers and Dewey Beats Truman being the only two I was able to finish (but still feeling I wasn't getting all that was there).
In the interviews with him I've seen (on youtube) he appears quite benign and sweet, hardly the ugly right-winger alluded to upthread. But then, I've never met him.
by Anonymous | reply 6 | July 7, 2025 12:34 AM
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He was even hated by many people in the W. Bush administration, and not for being gay.
by Anonymous | reply 9 | July 7, 2025 12:43 AM
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Is there any documentation out there about all that nastiness?
by Anonymous | reply 10 | July 7, 2025 12:47 AM
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So far, it seems to be “he used to be republican”, r10.
I’m listening to his diary now. It’s great.
by Anonymous | reply 11 | July 7, 2025 12:52 AM
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Not typically a fiction reader, but I’ve always enjoyed his historical novels.
by Anonymous | reply 12 | July 7, 2025 1:35 AM
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He ghostwrote Dan Quayle's autobiography and told people that Quayle was a wonderful person and deserved to be president.
Truly a self-loathing homo of the first order. Btw his nickname at Brown was Tom Thumb given that he's about 5'3" and looks like a, well....
by Anonymous | reply 13 | July 7, 2025 4:17 AM
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Ok so this might not be the ideal place to ask this question. 😂
It sounds like Henry and Clara, and maybe Bandbox.
by Anonymous | reply 14 | July 7, 2025 4:29 AM
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So he was a normie republican before the Great Realignment. Like many others like him, e.g., Nicolle Wallace, he no longer associates with his former party. But for those purists who don’t care about winning elections, it’s of no moment.
by Anonymous | reply 15 | July 7, 2025 4:51 AM
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After watching Fellow Travelers, which I felt was a very powerful and moving series, I looked him up. He gave a lengthy interview in which he reiterated that the transcendent political issue of the day for him was opposing communism and the only political party starting with McCarthy and others from that era that seemed serious about dealing with it and opposing it was the lo be cool with cozying up to Russia. I get that Mallon left the Republican Party because of Turnip, and also that Russia is no longer a communist country, but, still, how someone could have lived through the civil rights era, the AIDS era, ACT UP, 9/11, Nixon in China, etc, and still feel that anti-communism is the transcendent political issue for our country seems to indicate a very rigid personality type.
by Anonymous | reply 16 | July 7, 2025 5:55 AM
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^ whoops - my computer swallowed a sentence above. Should have said, ".....and others from that era which seemed serious about dealing with it and opposing it was the Republican Party. Ironically, Trump is now the plaything of Putin, who was an ex-KGB guy raised in communist era Russia, and many of Trump's Republican followers, who were virulently anti-communist in the past are now completely cool with cozying up to Russia."
by Anonymous | reply 17 | July 7, 2025 6:00 AM
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My assumption is that anti-communism is a cover for his more basic desire for camouflage — you’d be more likely to look amongst the democrats for “homos.” (And you’d be quite wrong, at least amongst the DC politicians.)
by Anonymous | reply 18 | July 7, 2025 11:09 PM
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