Lucky Bastard:: A Novel [Hardcover]

Charles McCarry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 9, 1998

Lucky Bastard is the suspenseful and hilarious story of a gifted politician with dangerous friends and a zipper problem. The author is Charles McCarry, a writer widely acclaimed for his richly perceptive novels of political intrigue.
          
John Fitzgerald Adams, known by the voters who love him as Jack, has good reason to believe he is the illegitimate son of JFK.
His goal is the same as that of any Kennedy: to reclaim the presidency . . . and enjoy as many women as possible along the way. Jack possesses an instinctual political genius, an unerring knack for charming voters and advancing his own interests.
          
But Jack, up from poverty, cannot make it to the Oval Office without money and support. Luckily, he becomes the beneficiary of the largesse of two maverick Russians who recognize Jack's talent and invest considerable resources in his rise to power. Jack also relies on a strong-willed wife, an ardent radical who masterminds his political moves while guarding against the threat that his wild libido will destroy his career. As Jack marches toward the presidency, others who realize the truth about his sinister connections try to stop him. But will anyone believe them?
          
Charles McCarry has long been recognized as the dean of Washington's novelists, "a magical writer, the very best in this field" (Martha Gellhorn,
Sunday Telegraph). With Lucky Bastard, McCarry has written the novel of his career, a thrilling and imaginative vision of power and conspiracy in the age of Clinton.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Task: Concoct a plot for a novel about a draft-dodging president with a ready smile and a readier libido; a staunchly feminist, Ivy League-educated First Lady; and a political campaign funded by the suspiciously manipulable accounts of a Midwestern bank.

Result: Primary Colors? Perhaps. Or you might barely have scratched the surface of Charles McCarry's darkly byzantine and wildly perceptive new novel, Lucky Bastard. McCarry rips the skeletons from Clinton's wide-open closet and clothes them with the slightly tattered grandeur of Camelot: his hero is John Fitzgerald Adams ("Jack"), who possesses an instinctual political genius and an unerring knack for charming voters while advancing his own interests. Jack also happens to believe that he is JFK's illegitimate son, and his march to the White House carries the aura of "divine right."

Or is that Left? McCarry spins a labyrinthine tale of political influence driven by two maverick Russians who believe that the Communist Revolution "happened in the wrong country at the wrong time." They recognize Jack's talent and charisma and sponsor his rise to power in the hope of achieving tradecraft's coup de grâce: a Soviet pawn in the Oval Office.

Perhaps the novel's greatest strength is its narrator, Dmitri, a cynical Russian whose dry wit and world-weary observations anchor the unabashedly excessive (and usually lubricious) machinations of agents, handlers, recruits, and just plain folks. Thanks mostly to Dmitri, you may never again watch the evening news without a raised eyebrow and a "What if...?" on your lips. --Kelly Flynn

From Publishers Weekly

Former CIA man McCarry (The Tears of Autumn; Shelley's Heart) is a highly skilled storytellerAand sometime coauthor (Inner Circles, with Alexander Haig)Awhose knowledge of agentry and Washington politics is extensive but lightly worn. His background has also given him a strong degree of cynicism, however, and that is the dominant quality of this highly readable tale. McCarry's antihero is Jack Adams, who believes he is the love child of JFK and a Navy nurse, and who is singled out by the KGB during his college days as a promising "asset"Aone, in fact, that rogue KGB man Peter believes could actually be placed in the Oval office as president. Jack is a charming fellow, a born liar but irresistibly likable, a compulsive womanizer without a thought or emotion that is not self-centered; ergo, according to McCarry, he's a master politician. With the aid of Morgan, a caricature of a leftist extremist woman of the 1960s, and boyhood buddy Larry, a college sports hero crippled by Vietnam, Jack works his way up the political ladder in his native Ohio until the top spot is within reach. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union is crumbling, the KGB is running for cover and just where do Peter's (and therefore Jack's) allegiances lie? It's a wonderfully promising premise for a thriller, and the novel moves along at a good clip. The reader is never sure, however, just how seriously McCarry intends his fable to be taken. There are elements of farcical satire at work here, some over-the-top cloak-and-dagger background that belongs in James Bond movies, some raunchy but cold-blooded sex and a windup more cynical than anything that has gone before it. It is this uncertainty of tone, wavering between acute, sophisticated observation and glib absurdity, that ultimately prevents the book from attaining the alarming power it occasionally suggests. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 385 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (June 9, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067944761X
• ISBN-13: 978-0679447610
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #522,068 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wickedly Witty, Fun, & Lite, Non-stop Read for McCarry Fans, October 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Lucky Bastard:: A Novel (Hardcover)

Too close to reality? Speaking of China, Bill Clinton, W-88's and "technology transfer," If you have not read the novel Lucky Bastard by Charles McCarry, you owe it to yourself. It is a fast, witty, hilarious and phenomenal read. The book will have you rolling on the floor in laughter. (I waited anxiously for it and bought it as soon as it came out, then ripped through it in two days; a thoroughly enjoyable "could-not-put-it-down" reading experience.) But this book is also a serious study in politics, intelligence operations, subversion and corruption cloaked in light humor that is well crafted with more than a ring of truth derived from inside knowledge of the intelligence business. McCarry's portrayal of tradecraft is excellent. He draws from professional personal experience.

From the book jacket: `Lucky Bastard is the ...story of a gifted politician with dangerous friends and a zipper problem.' `Lucky Bastard is ...a thrilling and imaginative vision of power and conspiracy in the "age of Clinton."' In hind sight perhaps a little too close to realty for comfort.

Lucky Bastard is a thriller, full of suspense, following its anti-hero, Jack, the illegitimate son of of a famous political figure, from his early days as a draft dodger, who takes his best friend to the airport to ship out to Viet Nam, then "assaults" his loyal best friend's girl on the trip home. Jack goes to Europe on a foundation scholarship and becomes involved with a notorious German terrorist organization, then after a mysterious unaccounted for trip to Russia, returns and successfully enters politics. With the help of his wife (handler), (and some foreign monetary assistance), a machiavellian, strong willed, ardent radical who masterminds his political moves while guarding against the threat that his wild libido will destroy his career he becomes governor of his home state. Then against all odds, he becomes President of the United States. A surprise twist involves the Chinese, who cannot believe their good fortune. The girlfriend and wife of his best friend, knowing Jack for what he really is, takes great risks to expose him, but will anyone believe her. The novel has an interesting perspective as it is told from the point of view of Jack's maverick Russian intelligence service handlers.

The prophetic Lucky Bastard is in hard back, published in 1998 by Random House and has been out about a year and a half. It was particularly timely in that it was released just before Bill Clinton's trip to China in 1998.

Charles McCarry is (in my opinion) the best American author in the espionage/intelligence fiction genre. His tradecraft is a par excellence that has given him a deserved reputation with those in the know. McCarry is the author of seven works of non-fiction and 9 works of fiction. He has contributed to U.S. News & World Report and Esquire and was the first and only editor-at-large of National Geographic magazine. He draws on experience from his years as a field agent during the cold war era to produce some of the most engaging, profound and authentic novels you will ever read. Also by Charles McCarry, Last Supper is an epic work of pre- and post cold war World War II era. One of the best (if not THE BEST) American novels I have ever read.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Too racy for Dick Morris, August 23, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lucky Bastard:: A Novel (Hardcover)

Perhaps Christopher Hitchens' "The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice" could offend more people than "Lucky Bastard," but I'm not taking bets. Dick Morris reviewed this book and remarked that there were too many sex scenes and that we might want to skip past them; this drollery impelled me to buy the book. The religious left is best advised to give it a miss, unless they want to test their HMO's stroke-care facilities. For the Clinton hating right, it is strong pornography. For the majority in the middle, it stands or falls as a thriller, no sillier than any number of other penny dreadfuls. John Fitzgerald Adams, the soi disant bastard of JFK, is a charming liar, a coward, a draft-dodger, and a sex fiend. And a Soviet agent, caught in a honey trap. He marries Morgan Weatherby, an icy, dedicated woman, who happens to be a Soviet agent too, but she's had the equivalent of Green Beret training and is the ballast to Jack's indiscipline. Jack and Morgan are run by Dmitri, a spy who sees to getting them the money that they need to win elections and relaying instructions from Peter, the true spymaster. Jack, as his mother insists he be called, rises to Lieutenant Governor of Ohio, then Governor, and then to the presidency, all with a little help from his "friends." Friends in Moscow, and friends in America. Jack's best friend, a boyhood friend, is Danny, who married Cindy, an attorney, who is described with the prostrate adoration of women that one finds from men who marry intelligent, pretty, and kind wives who love them, or from gay men who just wish we could. Cindy is described in some of the most empurpled prose I've read in bound pages, up to and including being called "an American goddess," an appellation which I find equally possible from either category. But she is spectacular: after endless digging and probing-brains, beauty, determination AND loyalty--she divines the truth, and failing to stop Jack through legal ways, she stops him in the only way she can, with a honey trap of her own. The ending is a bit short, and a bit abrupt, and quite factitious, even for a thriller, but by that time the book had run on long enough and I didn't wish for any more pages although I didn't regret having read what I had. And about the sex: there is nothing in it as graphic as what the grand jury in Washington is hearing. Perhaps Mr. Morris was bored; there is not a single mention of feet.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hmmm, this guy seems familiar..., March 3, 2000

By 

"grizzellda" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lucky Bastard:: A Novel (Hardcover)

When I bought this book, it was for my husband. He raved about it so much, I read it myself. It is like 3 stories, rolled into one. First is the story of the young rapist/spy. Second, is the story of spy/politician. Third is the race for the presidency. McCarry wove all three stories together masterfully. The energy didn't keep up all the way to the end, but it is still a great read!