Customer Reviews

American Adulterer: A novel

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

And that's the last bit of etiquette we see in this book, which is basically akin to a clinical report of John F. Kennedy's (referred to as "the subject") medical maladies and sexual compunctions.

This is how the book weaves in actual facts ...
Sex, back pain, diarrhea, sex - Inaugural address
Sex, back pain, constipation, sex - Bay of Pigs
Sex, back pain, diarrhea, sex - Moon launch

Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

At times this book is interesting, but never truly captivating. The way it's composed depersonalizes "the subject" and creates such a distance that it's hard to relate to or care about the character.

Other times, JFK's symptoms read like the possible side effects label on an untested anti-depressant. eg.

"...Addison's disease, thyroid deficiency, gastric reflux, gastritis, peptic ulcer, ulcerative colitis, prostatitis, urethritis, chronic urinary tract infections, skin infections, fevers of unknown origin, lumbar vertebral collapse, osteoporosis of the lumbar spine, osteoarthritis of the shoulder, high cholesterol, allergic rhinitis, allergic sinusitis, and asthma."

Take a deep breath ... there's more

"....fatigue, weight loss, abdominal pain, aching muscles, headaches, abnormal skin pigmentation, low blood pressure, nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, weakness, constipation, muscle cramps and joint pains."

Sexy, huh? In spite of this, there was no shortage of women willing to receive JFK's "poison" on a regular basis.

Overall, I found the book to be repetitive, and at times off-putting. But it was interesting enough that I didn't feel I needed to put it down. It was an OK read, but really had the potential to be so much more.

This is one of the most interesting books I've read in a while. The author has an almost clinical, dispassionate tone in his writing as he covers a time about which much has already been written.

Up front, the book tells the reader that it's fiction. OK, well enough. However, it doesn't read like fiction because the author does a great job of tying his story to the actual time line of JFK's life and presidency. He weaves excerpts from his actual speeches into the text and he has a remarkable way of making what he's writing seem very real. It all seems very plausible. But, it's clear that he's done his homework and figured out "a way into" the story so that this cast of characters can serve his literary wishes.

I quibble with one glaring mistake -- at the end of the book, he has JFK waking up in DC and flying to Dallas that fateful morning, when, in reality, he'd been in Texas since the day before, having attended events in San Antonio, and on 11/21, a dinner in Houston before taking off for Ft. Worth, TX, where he addressed a breakfast at a hotel on the morning of the 22nd. After the breakfast, the presidential party took the quick flight over to Dallas' Love Field.

Many will find this book distasteful and question the author's motives for ever having written it. But, some 45 years after the events took place, and in an era today where political careers are ruined by activities which have pretty well been documented to have occurred during JFK's tenure in the White House (for which he paid no political price at the time), it's a fascinating look back into the Kennedy White House with something of a fresh, albeit, fictitious angle from which to tell that story.

The story of JFK, his life and his fateful presidency continue to capture interest, inspiration, derision and curiosity some 45 years since it was all cut short. Maybe it was the timing of the early 1960s (so long, Ike) and the promise and excitement which that decade held for many Americans. Or perhaps it this hugely interesting cast of characters in the Kennedy Administration -- his wife, his brother, his coterie of advisers, and the man whom we thought we knew so well. Or maybe it was the embodiment in JFK and his young family, of that promise, which did, in the end, inspire a generation in ways we've not seen for quite some time.

I'm paraphrasing Jackie Kennedy's oft-repeated quote, the one that opens this book, that men are such "a combination of good and evil." The book itself is rather that way.

The premise is amazing: a mental health professional is studying the life -- and sexual addiction -- of a certain high-ranking American politician. You know the one: good looking, charming, talented, witty, brilliant ... and plagued by a perpetually lazy zipper that jeopardizes everything he holds dear, including family and career.

He has a beautiful young wife and he loves her, even as he can't stay faithful to her. He trusts her, admires her, likes her ... and can't bear to limit himself to her. He has three children during the course of the book, and his love for them is palpable. His ambitions and idealism for his country feels very real, too. Except he is a cold, heartless womanizer who doesn't even seem to enjoy the sex. Because we all know how that last motorcade in Dallas is going to end, it makes the book seem more poignant.

So the book is original and highly readable but ... this fictionalized biography is of a real person, a historic figure who actually existed. Will people get the author's fanciful scenarios confused with the truth? While JFK and Jackie are both gone, is it fair to their daughter and grandchildren that this book is out there?

I heard somewhere that Jackie's original pen and ink drawings didn't fetch as much as predicted when they were placed for sale at an auction. Maybe that means that America is finally ready to let the Kennedys rest in peace. And maybe it's time.

This novel primarily explores John F. Kennedy's brief time in the White House with occasional flashbacks to significant moments in his youth. It juxtaposes Kennedy's leadership skills, with lengthy speech excerpts and vivid descriptions of historical events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, with graphic and highly detailed explorations of his many health problems, which are tied to his almost physical and emotional need to cheat on his wife, to release the "poison" that builds up inside of him.

As other reviewers have pointed out, this is not in any way an erotic novel or a tell-all tabloid about Kennedy's relationship with Marilyn Monroe and others. It's an almost clinical examination of his body and mind, which may seem tedious after a while, yet it also demonstrates that Kennedy had to deal with serious health problems over and over again throughout his entire life, even when facing down the threat of nuclear war.

I enjoyed this novel, but I must say that my enjoyment stems from the fact that I have read many books about Kennedy. Those largely unfamiliar with Kennedy's life and times may easily get lost because the author does not go out of his way to provide historical context. The Bay of Pigs invasion, for example, is discussed in detail--but never by name. Fidel Castro is repeatedly mentioned but almost never by name. A large number of individuals are only mentioned by first name or nickname most of the time, including Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, J. Edgar Hoover, advisor David Powers (whose only role seems to be JFK's pimp), various known mistresses such as Judith Exner, and astronauts Alan Shepard and John Glenn.

That is not to say that the novel is perfect, hence my rating of 4 instead of 5 stars. Whenever the author tried to slyly compare Kennedy to Clinton, I was turned off because it immediately took me out of the 1960s. Scenes of Kennedy smoking pot, but not inhaling, in the Lincoln Bedroom, or slipping a series of willing interns underneath his desk in the Oval Office went a little too far, as did the suggestion that Hoover brought in a Kenneth Starr clone "special investigator" in the summer of 1963 to investigate and possibly expose the president's behavior if he did not resign from office. I was also very surprised that the president's brother and arguably closest advisor, Robert F. Kennedy, does not appear at all in the entire novel. It's as if he does not exist, even during the tense days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. For a novel that actually gets a large number of details correct, right down to JFK asking Jackie to remove her sunglasses just prior to the assassination (which was captured in a few Dallas home movies), the complete deletion of RFK as a character was shocking. And finally, though arguably part of the story of the president's poor health, the author gleefully finds multiple ways to graphically describe the president's often-bloody bowel movements throughout the novel, comparing them at times to Niagara Falls or a nuclear bombardment. That was a bit much.

All in all, I think mostly people who are very familiar with Kennedy's life and times will find something to appreciate in this novel, although parts of it will likely disturb, dismay, or annoy. Does it change my opinion of Kennedy? No. It's fiction, though it's main success, I think, is in the way it demonstrates the complete physical turmoil Kennedy was in during much of his presidency while genuinely trying to make a difference, improve lives, and further world peace.

Starting on the very first paragraph, author Jed Mercurio quickly sets the stage for his new book, American Adulterer. The reader quickly sees that the primary character in the book is observed as a case study. The forensic style was to this reviewer at first almost irritating, but the flat tone of the narrative actually adding to the ensuing drama. To anyone who is even a basic follower of American history, it doesn't take long to figure out who the main character is, though it's not until page 23 that we read of the new President being sworn in:

"I, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

This is a gripping novel, a work of fiction that surrounds President John F. Kennedy's personality and life as US President. It focus is on JFK's tremendously high libido, catered to under often chancy circumstances, and all the while with the President suffering from a range of almost unbearable illnesses while managing to maintain a flawless public image. Kennedy's actions define the term womanizer. Marilyn Monroe heads the seemingly limitless list of his conquests and included Angie Dickinson, and Judith Campbell Exner, all while his elegant wife pursed her lips. The President bedded actresses, society beauties, a variety of call-girls, White House junior staffers with stars in their eyes, as well as the foreseeable intern or two.

This is Jed Mercurio's third novel, following Bodies and Ascent, and it's in a different style from his earlier writings. Author Mercurio portrays Kennedy's proclivities as 'sex addiction', and tells his story in the wording of a psychiatrist's private notes. JFK becomes ' the Subject', and we learn much about his anxieties and ailments, as well as his private rules regarding adultery. Like many great political leaders, Kennedy possessed a libido that matched his political ambition. He tells a he tells a bemused Harold Macmillan, "If I don't have a women for three days, I get terrible headaches."

Fictionalizing the lives and penchants of presidents and politicians is nothing new. Joe Klein did it quite well with his book Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics, in which he satirized Bill Clinton's successful first campaign. Curtis Sittenfeld's American Wife imagined a First Lady Laura Bush that might be hidden behind her unusually serene public mask. Robert Penn Warren won the Pulitzer Prize for his landmark book All the King's Men in 1947, a loosely fictionalized account of populist political demagogue Governor Huey Long of Louisiana, one of the nation's most astounding politicians. These are all fictionalized accounts of real people involved in real events of American politics, as is this one.

Author Mercurio's writing is good enough to create long episodes of prolonged dramatic tension, even when you're aware of the outcome, as happens with novels that fictionalize real events. The Cuban missile crisis in the early '60s is skillfully reconstructed with all of its end-of-the-world tension. There are also a few laughs here and there, though they usually tend towards immature humor. In one chapter that broaches the anxieties that underlie Kennedy's masculinity, a swaggering Frank Sinatra drops his swimming shorts before JFK and a pool full of females in Palm Beach to reveal his "brutal" male appendage. Before jumping into the pool, he wisecracks, "This makes me first man." How you react to that puerile quip may tell you how you might react to the book. Luckily these are far and few between.

The evidence for John F. Kennedy's libido and demonstrated adventurism has already been published in several biographies, and none have hurt his enduring charisma or his political reputation as a leader. The Clinton Era has come and gone, leaving the world with few false impressions as to the imperfections of those who hold the highest office. There is a rather lewd FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover telling JFK to knock off the affairs. There's also a tongue-in-cheek reference to Clinton and his well-known Monica moment when Kennedy is asked, "Have you had sexual relations with this woman?"

As a nation, we have a thing for Kennedy's Camelot and the pre-Vietnam era. The huge success of the acclaimed Mad Men television series bears witness to our ongoing fascination with those times.

For all its aura of a long-gone era, when the private lives of the politically powerful were protected from the public gaze, Mercurio's American Adulterer is a novel of our times. It's prurient, though detached; salacious, but unobjectionable. It has its flat spots, but if one can be objective about the topic and writing style, all in all it's a good read.

6/26/2009

If the name JFK makes you envision a champion of civil rights, activist for nuclear disarmament, and a handsome, charismatic leader who was brutally snuffed out before his time, after reading American Adulterer, you will never view Jack Kennedy that way again.

Jed Mercurio, a British author with a medical background, offers a fictional glimpse into what could have gone on in the sex life, physical health and mind of JFK. Mercurio portrays Kennedy as such a medically ill person that we wonder how he ever had the clarity of mind to decide whether to wear the white shirt or the blue shirt, let alone to negotiate with Nikita Khrushchev. Kennedy is on a host of medications for his Addison's, thyroid failure, and suffers with severe bouts of stomach distress. This is not to mention the incessant pain from his back, which was injured in his early years playing sports, fractured when PT 109 was blown up by the Japanese, became septic during surgery, and infected during a postop operation for a herniated disc. Wow! How could one person have such bad luck? And how could that man possibly have the drive, and the intellectual rigor, to aspire to the highest office in the land?

I felt very sympathetic towards Kennedy reading about all his ailments, although there was quite a bit of TMI, but the sympathy stopped the minute Mercurio provided a detailed description of Kennedy's affairs. I'm not quite sure how I feel about sex addiction -- is it just a way for powerful men like Tiger Woods to justify their infidelity and exploitation of women because women throw themselves at them? Is it a psychological problem -- a type of sociopathy where an otherwise devoted husband has absolutely no regard for his wife or her feelings? Or is it biological? Do some men (and women) have extraordinary urges for sex that go beyond the "norm"? There are no easy answers but I had an uncomfortable feeling reading this book... that I wasn't sure if I was really entitled to this information. Just because people are famous, or even world leaders, doesn't mean that I should know the intimate details of their physical health or sex life.

On the other hand, Kennedy is part of history. And the old boys' network that kept his secrets is long gone. Maybe we're entitled to know some of this but not all. Although this work clearly took a lot of time and was well researched, it was quite repetitive and too intimate a look at the man for my own taste. Mercurio succeeds in crushing whatever idolization we have about the JFK years and the dreadful assassination. Instead, he is reduced to a skirt chasing invalid. Very sad.


Sigrid Macdonald, Author of Be Your Own Editor

I didn't think I was going to like this book. At first, I didn't like the third person reference style (ie.,"the subject" is used instead of referring directly to Kennedy. However, the book developed into a profound and original work that covered aspects I hadn't thought of or heard about. Kennedy was a very complicated character; the epitome of saint and sinner. I never realized the level of Kennedy's pain and illness before I read this. His philandering seemed to be of a different nature than merely gratuitous desire. He is shown at once to be the very epitome of moral conscious while being a man of many side "interests." What is truly bizarre is Kennedy's apparent lack of emotional connection to any of his side interests. He doesn't always know their names or even remember if he "had sex with that woman." At the same time, he is shown to truly love his wife and be very close to her and his family. Even stranger is the fact that Kennedy is so debilitated that the women must "take care of him" because he can't really be an active participant. Well, I could go on but I need to save plenty for the reader. This book is far more than a book on Kennedy's women. He often does what he sees as the right thing to do without concern for re-election. He was often hated for choosing the right thing over politics. The book has astounding insight into how close we were to the actual brink of nuclear war and how Kennedy's role was crucial to us even being here today. If we had known what he was facing, none of us would have slept in those days. The book claims to be a novel but I suspect it isn't fiction. It just has to be called a novel because many things known by reputable people cannot be proven as fact to the legal standard of proof. This is a look at President Kennedy in a way like he has never before been portrayed. Some books talk about the gossip and others have him as a great statesman. Mercurio dares to demonstrate one doesn't have to be either good or bad and the world isn't so black and white as many might think.

I thought this fictionalized book of John F. Kennedy's life as President and his womanizing ways would be a really interesting read. In reality, it was quite the opposite. The book is tedious in the way that it's basically the same throughout the whole thing. JFK, referred to as The Subject a lot, suffers back pain and physical ailments and suffers in ways trying to find women to satisfy his need for intimate relations. Marilyn Monroe appears in the book and is the annoying, clingy woman who just can't get it in her head that John won't commit to more than just an affair. Jackie Kennedy is the wife who we are constantly reminded that she may know about the affairs but cannot prove it and does she approve.

If you read the first two chapters, you don't really need to read the whole book because even with the events that happened in JFK's presidency, the private side of his life is on repeat-physical ailments, needing to find the next affair to satisfy his lust, and doing nice things for his children. This book could have been great but it was written by the wrong writer. Jed Mercurio seemed to have a good idea but doesn't have the story-telling skills and writing skills to make it into a page-turner. Such a shame because it could have been a great book.

Jed Mercurio's "American Adulterer" is a novel written about the sexual proclivities and the medical ailments of President John F. Kennedy. Throughout the book, Mercurio chronicles what purports to be Kennedy's almost daily regimen of drugs and sex to the point of tediousness. One star may seem like a harsh criticism for a book, but as you will see below, it is well justified.

From an historical viewpoint, Kennedy's presidency accomplished little, possibly because it was brief. One could reasonably argue that he did some things well and others, not so well. He was (and still is) very popular because of his youth, his attractive wife and family, and his ability to convey a sense of new beginnings - one might say hope and change. His popularity also stems from his assassination and the destruction of what he and the country wanted to accomplish. Had he not been assassinated, there are those who believe he might not have been reelected, but that is for another discussion. I mention these things as a preface to this statement: I am not a Kennedy fanatic trashing yet another kiss-and-tell book about JFK, nor am I a Kennedy hater who wishes them ill.

"American Adulterer" does not deserve your attention. The narrative is repetitive to a fault. Day after day, JFK gets various injections for his back pain, his Addison's disease, and other ailments he suffered from. Moreover, day after day, he attempts to secure the company of a young lady in order to deplete the toxins which are building up inside him. The reader also gets a glimpse into the thinking of the president as he rationalizes his philandering ways and as he analyzes those around him, including his wife. Dispersed throughout are references to events which occurred during the president's administration, such as the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Also included are texts of some of his speeches and letters from world leaders.

Jed Mercurio took the lazy way out writing this book. Rather than writing a book that documents and references his assumptions, he chose to write the book as fiction. With a wink and a nod, we are supposed to read this book presented as fiction, yet deep down somehow "know" it is true. There is room, of course, for works of fiction using an historical background, but in those works the background is usually incidental to the story; in "American Adulterer," it is integral. Mercurio would have served his reader better had he pointed to specific sources of information. For example, one incident that Mercurio writes of is an incident where JFK and Frank (presumably Sinatra, although Mercurio does not use last names in the book) were getting undressed before entering a swimming pool where two ladies awaited them. Supposedly, Sinatra was well-endowed and Kennedy was jealous, to the point where he thought of it years later and continued to resent Sinatra for it. Under the guise of fiction, we are to read this account and chuckle imagining it to be true.

"American Adulterer" does contain a brief bibliography that we are to believe was consulted in preparation of this book. Of the fifteen references listed, three are about Bill Clinton and one is JKF's "Profiles in Courage." What is lacking is any primary source material such as diaries or transcripts of tape recordings indicating that anything in this book has been confirmed. Since the book is fictitious, he is relieved of that responsibility.

There is nothing to be gained from reading "American Adulterer." Since it is a work of fiction, one does not know what is true and what is not true. Probably, some of the book is accurate, but what parts? We know that JFK was a philanderer, but do we know that JFK ordered Judith Campbell to have an abortion? Do we know that Marilyn Monroe killed herself because JFK refused to see her? Do we know that J. Edgar Hoover was forcing the president to resign lest his philandering be made public? Somehow Mercurio seems to think so and his work of fiction perpetrates such musings. Mercurio's previous offerings include "Cardiac Arrest," a medical drama and "Ascent," a "techno-thriller." He should stick to writing real fiction, not non-fiction in disguise.

"American Adulterer" tries to write about JFK in a new way. It is a fictionalized version of his life as president told as if it were an extended psychological study of the man. The book's weakness is that it too often reads as if were a psychologist's notes, complete with long lists of symptoms of JFK's various ailments, long lists of the side effects of the drugs he took for his ailments, and numerous references to JFK as "subject." On a personal level I was bothered by the casual treatment of JFK's endless affairs. It wasn't very long before I was bored with the character of JFK who, despite his affairs and presidency, comes across as very flat. Though I don't believe it was the author's intention, I came away from the book despising JFK more than I ever had after reading biographies on the Kennedys. If you are interested in the Kennedys during their time in the White House, I suggest passing on this one and instead checking out Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House.