Ann Beattie - Mrs Nixon

Ann Beattie’s new imagining of the inner life of Thelma Ryan “Patricia” Nixon is not strictly a novel and not strictly a meditation: It’s more of an intellectual wrestling match between author and subject. Beattie blends reflection on the lives of Richard and Pat Nixon with invented monologues and dialogues in their voices, fabricated news reports and other made-up documents to discover her own vision of the quintessentially American political couple.

Beattie expresses the verbal tics and mannerisms of Mrs. Nixon and her husband with a scientific sort of accuracy. In her depictions of the President and First Lady’s personal moments – like Mrs. Nixon driving past the infamous Watergate hotel – fiction and nonfiction blur to help the reader understand these figures’ minds in a way that no straightforward biography could.

Spliced together with these imaginary episodes are Beattie’s frank observations about writers and writing. Early on, she reveals that writers use baby-name books to help them create their characters; and later does a close read of Raymond Carver’s famous story Cathedral. Though their immediate connection to the subject is not always clear, these ruminations reveal some of the ways in which Beattie approaches her subjects and makes the book's method more palatable.

By Mrs. Nixon’s end, the sense of doom hanging over the Nixons’ relationship becomes palpable and the gravity of the project sets in. A lesser writer couldn’t have pulled this off, but Beattie does, with inimitable grace and style. 

Mrs Nixon Simon & Schuster, E-Book RRP $16.99

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