The Malaysian Insider :: Books
The Malaysian Insider :: Books |
| Brad Meltzer’s new thriller gets Oval Office insight Posted: 15 Jan 2013 03:30 AM PST  Author Brad Meltzer is shown in this publicity photo on January 14, 2013. When researching his forthcoming novel about a serial killer plotting to assassinate the US president, Meltzer went straight to the top: 41st President George H.W. Bush. – Reuters/Handout "Bush was extremely helpful," Meltzer, 42, said ahead of the release of "The Fifth Assassin" by Grand Central Publishing today. Meltzer explained that the former president was a fan after reading previous political thrillers he had written. "Bush wrote me the best fan letter I ever got in my life. Then he invited me to Houston to spend some time with him as I was researching one of the books. We became friends over the course of many years," Meltzer said in a telephone interview. "I'll always ask him about little details about White House life that only he and a few others could possibly know," the author added. "But asking a president about the hidden staircase in the White House residence is different than asking him about what it's like to know that someone's out there planning your death." Asked how he broached such a sensitive subject with Bush, Meltzer, who holds a Columbia law degree, was frank: "Maybe I should be smarter, but I just ask. They've dealt with far worse than me." "The Fifth Assassin," Meltzer's 12 novel, features the return of hero Beecher White and President Andrew Wallace, characters from Meltzer's previous novel, "The Inner Circle." White works as an archivist at the US National Archives and belongs to the Culper Ring, a covert network of spies founded by George Washington during the American Revolution. After White joins the Culper Ring, he learns Wallace is hiding a few sins behind his presidency. "(White is) part me, part dream," Meltzer said. "Twice as smart as me, but twice as broken. The truth is, I just love that our hero isn't some silly, macho cliche. He's an archivist. His best weapon is his brain." In the book, White and the Culper Ring are on the trail of a remorseless killer who sets his sights on Wallace. LINCOLN'S SKULL, ASSASSIN'S BONES The killer – who may well be someone White knows from his youth – is recreating the crimes of John Wilkes Booth, Charles J. Guiteau, Leon Czolgosz and Lee Harvey Oswald – the assassins of Presidents Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy, respectively. Even more disturbing, White discovers these four presidential assassins may not have been acting alone, contrary to what is written in history books. Meltzer explained that the idea for the book came during a visit to the little-known US Army-run National Museum of Health and Medicine near Washington. "It began with a government employee who told me that I needed to come to a museum that almost no one knew about," he said. "Naturally, I was suspicious ... Then he told me, 'We have pieces of Abraham Lincoln's skull, the bullet that killed him and even the bones of John Wilkes Booth, if you want to see them.' "But as I started looking at the items, I could feel my brain working out the plot of the thriller. What if, over the course of 100 years, the four assassins – from John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey Oswald – were secretly working together?" It is familiar territory for Meltzer, who also hosts "Brad Meltzer's Decoded," a television series on the History Channel where he and a team of experts examine history's mysteries. Meltzer has also written comic books, including "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" for Dark Horse Comics as well as "Green Arrow" and "Identity Crisis," which featured Superman and Batman, for DC Comics. His projects after "The Fifth Assassin" include a "Decoded" book, then a children's book and another Beecher White novel. Grand Central Publishing is an imprint of Hachette Book Group, which is owned by French publisher Hachette Livre, a subsidiary of Lagardere Group. – Reuters |
| US Justice Sotomayor writes of life’s struggles Posted: 14 Jan 2013 04:30 PM PST WASHINGTON, Jan 15 — In a memoir to be published today, Sonia Sotomayor writes of the chronic disease, troubled family relationships and failed marriage that accompanied her rise from a housing project in the Bronx to a seat on America's highest court. The 58-year-old justice, the first Hispanic and the third woman to serve on the US Supreme Court, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009, describes the insecurities she has felt as a minority who benefited from racial remedies.
Sitting down for a rare interview in her Supreme Court chambers, Sotomayor said that after being thrust into the public limelight with her nomination to the court, she felt the need for introspection to hold on to her identity. The court's nine justices, appointed for life, typically decline to sit for interviews or offer any personal observations related to cases. Book tours offer rare opportunities to draw them out on issues, even if only a little. "I began to realise that if I didn't stop and take a breath and figure out who this Sonia was, I could be in danger of losing the best in me," she said. She didn't want the memoir to be a retelling of her public persona, but rather to reveal who she was as a person, she said. The interview was part of an orchestrated media blitz to promote the book, which included appearances on Sunday night's popular CBS News programme "60 Minutes" and in People Magazine. In the coming-of-age story, Sotomayor paints a picture of her young self as a boisterous child, once rescued by a fireman neighbour when she got her head stuck in a bucket, trying to hear what her voice sounded like. Troubled family relationships She exudes the same energy when speaking on the phone or talking through the door to her assistant, often calling people "sweetie". Her chambers are spacious, bright and elegant, decorated with modern art on the walls. Her environs have not always been so pristine. She describes the difficulty of growing up with a father who was an alcoholic and a mother who was frequently absent. Diagnosed with diabetes at a young age, she wet the bed, fainted in church and learned to inject daily doses of insulin to regulate her blood sugar. Her father died when Sotomayor was nine, leaving a room full of drained liquor bottles hidden under his mattress, in jacket pockets and closets. While his death sent Sotomayor's mother into a state of grief, it was also a relief. Until then, her mother had worked long hours as a nurse to stay out of the house and avoid conflict. At her Supreme Court nomination, Sotomayor ascribed her success to her mother. In the book, Sotomayor portrays a more complicated relationship, describing the pain caused by her mother's absence and lack of affection. Sotomayor told Reuters that the part in the book about her relationship with her mother, who is still alive, was the most difficult to write. The justice is open about her insecurities. At Princeton, which admitted her in 1972 under an affirmative action programme, Sotomayor questioned her right to be there at times. Other students could be hostile to minorities, and the college newspaper routinely published letters bemoaning the presence of students on campus through racial remedies known as affirmative action. It gave her the sense that vultures were "circling, ready to dive when we stumbled", she writes. Vestiges of discrimination The book comes out as the Supreme Court is weighing a landmark case about the role of race in college admissions. Sotomayor was careful in the Reuters interview not to discuss current cases, but said there was value to affirmative action programmes. "It's impossible to not recognise that the vestiges of discrimination take a long time to erase," she said. "It just doesn't happen overnight." But she also called affirmative action a "double-edged sword". She said some people still attributed her position on the court to affirmative action, based on her identity as a Latina justice. "That's hurtful. To have your accomplishments naysaid is not something you welcome, and not something that makes you feel good," she said. Sotomayor's book is not the first literary window into a justice's personal life. Justice Clarence Thomas described his experience with poverty, racism and affirmative action in "My Grandfather's Son", and retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote about her early life growing up on an Arizona cattle ranch in "Lazy B." Sotomayor's self-portrait is the most revealing, down to the references to the old-lady underwear a friend persuaded her to abandon. She describes the blow of being denied a job offer at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison after working there as a summer associate while she was at Yale Law School. That disappointment hung over her like a cloud until she became a judge, she writes. The firm declined to comment. She also opens up about her marriage to her high school sweetheart, Kevin Noonan, which ended with an amicable divorce. On their wedding night, she insisted that he flush down the toilet Quaaludes that were given as a gift by his friends, showing her respect for the law. She says the marriage failed, in part, because of her self-reliance, but that she is still open to finding a happy relationship. — Reuters |
She signed on to write the sweeping, 315-page book, "My Beloved World", early in her tenure. She received a US$1.175 million (RM3.454 million) book advance in 2010 from publisher Alfred A. Knopf, according to financial disclosure records.| You are subscribed to email updates from The Malaysian Insider :: Books To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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