Customer Reviews

The Solomon Scandals

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Very interesting and realistic read; especially if you live in the DC area. I particularly liked the character development especially of the principle antagonist. I won't spoil the ending but it'll get your attention

Following in the footsteps of American realists, such as Mark Twain, Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, and Robert Penn Warren, David Rothman models The Solomon Scandals on actual people and events, revealing the degree to which corrupt politicians and greedy developers collude to cheat the American public. Rothman's main character, Jon Stone, a reporter for a Washington DC paper in the 1970s, tirelessly uncovers corruption that spreads into the White House. The frightening truth revealed by the novel is that the political practices of our national capital have changed little since Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner wrote The Gilded Age, more than one hundred years ago.

Solomon Scandals is a decidedly old-fashioned morality tale which pits an underdog DC journalist in the 1970s against a powerful coterie of politicians. Stone suspects that Solomon, contractor for the General Services Administration, has been defrauding the government by building substandard buildings and pocketing the difference. It starts out as a hunch, and Stone must try to talk to various bureaucrats to find the real story. In the meantime, his newspaper editor is convinced that Stone is chasing after a nonstory and making people mad in the process. A society columnist (Wendy Blevin) is somehow involved, but we're never sure until the end how the pieces fit together. As we follow Stone's path to hunt down information (remember, this was the 70s before Google and FOIA and even cellphones), we get a sense of how hard genuine reporting was (and still is). This novel is ostensibly about journalists in the 1970s, but also about deeper questions like: how do journalists trying to dig through the stories manage to stay sane?

Does this kind of intrepid reporter exist today? Taking the time to uncover such a long and tangled series of improprieties requires dedication, time and resources - increasingly that role is performed by crusading bloggers and amateur citizen journalists instead of professionals (Indeed, although Rothman started out as a professional journalist, over the last decade he has blogged full time). Even a newspaper with considerable resources and seasoned journalists like the Telegram (presumably modeled after the Washington Post) might have doubts about sending reporters to report things which are still unproven or likely to ruffle the feathers of important people around town (or worse yet, scare away advertising dollars). Stone is surprised to find that his biggest opponent is the newspaper itself - caught in the frantic and futile attempt to balance news with infotainment. But when newspaper reporting is dominated by who is dating whom and who has the most friends and best parties, journalists become nothing more than paparazzis. Stylistically, the novel might sound a little self-righteous and even self-aware (in good postmodern form). Throughout the book, the narrator seems aware of how later generations may view this campaign to expose Sy's misdeeds; I confess I sometimes had trouble keeping track of names and details. Also, some of the characters seem too glibly drawn. The mean-spirited Telegraph editor seems too glib a caricature. Still, Stone is an affable guy, and the book does a good job of conveying political vernacular of unknown bureaucrats working for a little-known agency. It's also a quick and fun read.

I leave the novel wondering which details of the scandal would matter to later generations. How much do politicians or officials really matter? One more scandal, one more fallen official. Eventually (for the average citizen who reads the newspapers), all these scandals blur together. Later generations of historians might very well care more about things which appear in the gossip pages than in the news section. Or maybe not. Stone believes (correctly, I think) that historians give undue importance to the newspaper's account of historical events - when in fact the real story never really is told in the newspaper. Perhaps Stone's mistake was in working for a daily newspaper (those bastards!) Maybe the protagonist should have ditched reporting & turned it into a screenplay instead.

David Rothman is a friend and I'm not an unbiased reviewer, but I genuinely enjoyed this thriller and found it great fun, as well as providing some interesting intellectual fodder. It will appeal particularly to people who care about honest politics and hard-hitting journalism, about people familiar with life and culture in Washington, DC, and to Jews interested in how a Jew should deal with moral and procedural problems. Those three traits happen to characterize both David and myself, but you'll find a lot if you fit any one of the traits--and maybe even if you fit none of them.