Customer Reviews

Regrets Only

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

"Regrets Only" is a flawed blockbuster from another era. The characters' voices are so similar that the dialogue sounds the same, no matter which of the unsympathetic characters is speaking. Yet this reader gobbled it up because Sally Quinn is the ultimate been-there-done-that writer. What she's done and seen most of us will never experience except vicariously.

And isn't "vicarious" why we read?

Novelistically and in almost every other way, Regrets Only is a near-irredeemable piece of crap. The book remains, for whatever work went into it, Danielle Steel with a chipped enamel of Big Names and Big Issues. That said, this book may be of interest to someone who lives in Washington or has a passing interest in how the city works, or f---s. Quinn obviously travels in the District's social stratosphere, and her true-to-life details are the only reason to read this book, and the only reason that I will buy it in paperback. (Originally I bought it, guffawed, and mailed it to journalist friends living abroad.) Do I sound envious of Sally Quinn's success? Well, sure. I've lived in Washington for quite awhile but lack any interest, except vicarious, in the social ramble. As Satchel Paige used to say, "The social ramble ain't restful." And in the ham hands of Sally Quinn, it ain't restful either. Just as steamy and prurient as an unairconditioned summer night in Georgetown.

A compelling novel of two passionate and talented women and the man they both loved. Great sex!

Sally uses the Washington Glamour and Intrigue the way Jackie uses California and Vegas to lure in the reader. Her descriptive writings put you there, and her style keeps you reading.

This is a weak entry into the moist thighs genre by Sally Quinn, wife of former Washington Post Editor-in-Chief Ben Bradlee. She knows much about what she writes from personal experience (power, money, D.C. society), particularly about affairs with married men in positions of power (when she was a young reporter for the Post she used to leave flirtatious, bawdy notes in Bradlee's office, as an opening in a gambit to seduce him. He was a married man with a son).

After she was given a wide berth in the Post's fledgling Style section and achieved some notice, she attempted to transition to TV and CBS, falling flat on her face. Beating a hasty retreat, she raced back to the safe confines of the Post, marrying the now divorced Bradley in the late 70's.

She became a chronicler of the D.C. party-'n-power set, noted for a rather catty, petty, rapier style. Among other highlights (lowlights?) she claimed that President Carter's National Security advisor Zbignew Brazensky(SP?) had pulled down his fly in front of reporter, as a vulgar come-on, and that pictures existed of the incident (this was a COMPLETE LIE). The paper issued a mealy-mouthed apology, and Quinn kept her job (nice to have the editor as a husband).

She continued to write a lot of society pap and begin writing books such as this one, a rather forgettable effort. In 1998, she caused a stir in official Washington by writing an article claiming that many of the people in her social set, the kind of permanent government of folks in institutions like the press and think tanks and people like David Gergen who go between more than one of these worlds, and a set that doesn't change with elections, felt particularly disgusted about President Clinton (a particularly hilarious trick of projection considering her use of sex for career advancement, and her lying in print about things such as Zbignew's pants). The article was a classic piece of arrogant reporting, were she made copious mention of "our Washington" (it went without saying that this was a small slice of White Ward 3 West of Rock Creek Park) and what this interloper Clinton, who happened to be elected twice by the American people and enjoyed 60% approval ratings, had done to it.

In an appearence on C-SPAN'S Washington Journal shortly after the bunk came out she was rightfully pummeled with viewers phoning in from coast to coast calling her on her smug arrogance (call up C-SPAN viewer services and try to order it, it really is a choice piece of televsion). As the coup-de-grace, the entire country flipped her kind and their way of thinking the bird when the Democrats actually gained seats in Congress.

I guess this review isn't much about the book, as it is about Ms. Quinn, but her personage kind of rivals the book in it's unpleasantness.