9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Really unexpected and Really Good!, March 8, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Elvis and Nixon (Hardcover)
I never would have picked up this novel, but it was given to me as a gift by someone who I trust. Jonathan Lowy writes like he's channeling Elvis and Nixon--their voices are amazingly real and unstereotyped. He also perfectly recreates what Washington DC was like in the Vietnam era when I was a student there. I was moved on one page and laughing out loud on the other. This is a great cultural satire about two famous and infamous men as well as a very genuine novel about America.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The secrets behind the meeting revealed, March 6, 2001
This review is from: Elvis and Nixon (Hardcover)
As if enough wasn't being written in the non-fiction department about Richard Milhous Nixon and Elvis Aron Presley, Jonathan Lowy has taken the time to write a fictionalized account of the bizarre meeting between the twosome. Fortunately, Lowy has infused his tale with enough interesting characters, both real and fictional, as well as enough meandering plot lines, and psychedelic writing to keep the reader's interest level from beginning to end.
The odd pairing of Elvis and Nixon occurred when Presley went to Washington D.C. in search of a Federal Narcotics at large Agent badge to help control and bring back the counter culture of hippies, yippies, panthers, and other anti-establishment organizations. The novel's main task is to fictionalize the settings and situations that brought forth such an unlikely meeting in the first place. However, much like the play "Nixon's Nixon" by Russell Lees, this work uses this instant of Nixon's life to bring forth his views on other issues. Good versus evil is shown quite clearly. Though misguided in many of his efforts, and often in his methods, Elvis and his brood are typically shown to be good hearted in nature. Nixon and his henchmen however are drawn through Lowy's obvious distaste. Pat Buchanan in particular could not appear more satanic. The Mai Lai massacre is also drawn into the fray.
The two main figures are virtually caricatures in real life but Lowy pushes the envelope with his fictional versions. With Elvis, he takes real life stories of Presley sermonizing to his bodyguards, popping pills, large and unique appetite, and supposed obsession with the Beatles and crams them all into a few day period with zeal. With Nixon, he doesn't push nearly as far, seemingly because just exploring the Tricky Dick side of Nixon gets exactly what Lowy wants the reader to see.
The fictional extras are exposed to the reader throughout the novel, in many of the short, fast-paced chapters. There are no wasted characters in Lowy's writing. Ben Rollins, a Viet Nam veteran with only one arm refuses to accept an award in the Rose Garden; his sister fell under the spell of drugs while he was in Nam and has become a hooker; she helps Colonel Sitorski, who is being framed as the White House leaker of pertinent Mai Lai information to the press; his son Junior was at Mai Lai, and so on in a plot that stretches credulity at times.
The pace of the novel keeps things rolling along; the short chapters enticing you to go forward and not put the book down. The plot lines and their interweaving, while again occasionally drawing attention to themselves, are very entertaining. The writing itself is clear, and Lowy even inserts an authorial decision statement into the work with a quick flourish of metafiction. Even without high interest levels in Nixon, Elvis or even to a small degree the early seventies, this one will make a good weekend or summer read.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Pop Culture Schlock as Dark Social Commentary, December 17, 2003
This review is from: Elvis and Nixon (Hardcover)
In this rather creative novel, Lowy has expanded a famous but certainly schlocky pop-culture event, Nixon's meeting with Elvis, into a dark and satirical commentary on the larger issues of the day. The actual meeting doesn't take place until the end of the book, when Elvis volunteers to help Nixon spy on the types of characters inspired by the events covered in the rest of the story. This is essentially a story about the Vietnam War and its destructive effects on the American culture of the period. Lowy's characters run the gamut of all the types of people who were affected - former soldiers scarred by the horrors of the war, hippies in the new counterculture of dissent, reactionary squares who would say anything to disagree with the hippies (no matter how hateful), a military commander who has realized that blood is on his hands, and representatives of the increasingly paranoid clan of Nixon cronies. A social examination of all these troubling trends is really the focus of this novel. Plus we get a wonderfully muddleheaded Elvis, though Lowy seems to be stretching a bit when imaging how a drug-induced mind operates. Meanwhile, Lowy attempts a highly tangled web of conspiracies and political intrigues among the paranoid government spooks who haunt the book, but has bitten off more than he can chew, as the subplots get unnecessarily dense and tangled. Some annoyingly heavy-handed moralizing is lurking around beneath Lowy's writing style. But this book is still a fun read that can be unexpectedly disturbing and thought-provoking. [~doomsdayer520~]
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
