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the complete review - fiction

Gordon Liddy is my Muse

by
John Calvin Batchelor

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B : Written in an appealing fast and clever style, a witty and decent read.

See our review for fuller assessment.

Review Summaries

Source	Rating	Date	Reviewer
Boston Globe	.	11/3/1990	Mark Feeney
Chicago Tribune	.	18/3/1990	Anthony Olcott
Denver Post	.	25/3/1990	Jack Kisling
The LA Times	.	1/4/1990	Winston Groom
NY Times Book Rev.	C+	1/4/1990	Josh Rubins
San Fran. Chron.	.	8/4/1990	Peter Handel
Voice Lit. Supp.	.	7/5/1991	Albert Mobilio
Washington Post	.	4/3/1990	Paul Skenazy
Washington Post	.	18/7/1991	Douglas Glover

  From the Reviews:

• "Batchelor's writing in this collection of tales is generally a highly entertaining combination of the philosophical, political, allegorical and metaphorical. Unfortunately, it sometimes lapses into the cryptic and occasionally degenerates into just plain gibberish. Since none of these stories reprise any of the others, save for a character or two, one of the mysteries to me is why it is being published as a novel -- except that publishers often think they can't make much money selling a collection of short stories." - Winston Groom, The Los Angeles Times
  
  
• "... refracted through the iffy persona and trendy patter of Tommy 'Tip' Paine, some provocative themes have been reduced to a sporadically entertaining blur." - Josh Rubins, The NY Times Book Review

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       Batchelor's hero (who tells the story) is bestselling spy-novelist Tommy "Tip" Paine, a fun character with a marvelously laid back life and lifestyle. Batchelor's style here is most agreeable -- fast and funny, with clever points by the page -- which makes the book an enjoyable read. Batchelor does stray about a bit far afield, but except for the lack of a truly cohesive story that is fine by us too. His politics might not be to everyone's liking, but that and even G.Gordon Liddy as his muse are all reasonably depicted and explained and though we don't agree we found it amusing and plausible.

       Batchelor manages to be serious without being ponderous, and it is action-packed enough to keep any reader entertained. Some of the political explanations are a bit too detailed and complex (Batchelor even has a Deep Throat theory), but otherwise it is almost exemplary for what popular fiction can and should do. We certainly recommend it.

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Links:

• Chicago Tribune
• The Los Angeles Times
• Publishers Weekly

• Walking the Cat (Gordon Liddy is my Muse II).

• See Index of Contemporary American fiction
• See Index of Series and Sequels under review

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About the Author:

       American author John Calvin Batchelor was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania in 1948.

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