Falling Together Randolph Anderson 9781466291232 Books
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Falling Together, the fiction debut of award-winning author Randolph Anderson, is a fusion of literary, political and social genres that will draw in readers of many backgrounds and persuasions. It is late December, 2011, and the 2012 Republican presidential primaries will begin in a few days. At a family party on Christmas Eve, divided loyalties erupt over wealthy conservative Senator “Uncle” Ralph Mason’s presidential campaign. Events quickly give way to dubious fund-raising, an ad blitz, a fateful TV interview and press conference, invasion of personal corporate files, a funny Senate hearing about kidneys, planting “Gotchas,” ancestry, race, and mistaken parentage. Three very unlike family members are forced to dig down to the roots of America’s collapsing public life and faltering global supremacy. Their astounding makeovers change them and could change the nation. Falling Together exposes the bedrock of political striving and thinking—from campaign strategies to morality, national destiny, the economy, and the changing electorate.
Falling Together Randolph Anderson 9781466291232 Books
Review of Randolph Anderson's Falling TogetherBy James W. Moorman
Randolph Anderson's Falling Together is several things: a political novel, a novel of ideas, a first novel, and, most important, a novel our entire political class should read - read and be required to write book reports so voters could judge how well each politician understood what they had read.
Falling Together is the story of a candidate, Ralph Mason, for the Republican nomination for President in the 2012 election. Anderson's 2012 election campaign, a fictional campaign, is, thank God, not the one that the American voter actually sees and reads about as the real primaries approach.
Evan a writer as skilled as Mr. Anderson could never have imagined the amazing spectacle we are witnessing and that has entertained us to despair. Rather, Falling Together is an "alternative-universe" view of 2012 where things happen that we can only wish would happen in the actual world of today's politics.
Mr. Anderson's novel is stuffed full of interesting ideas, but more than anything else, it is a meditation on doing the right thing. It's no secret that Americans are at the moment dismayed by the crassness of their political class: prevarication, mendacity, excessive partisanship, character assassination, sexual misconduct, greed and graft, hypocrisy, ignorance, know-nothingness, dirty tricks, manipulation, small mindedness, ineptitude, recklessness. It's hard to know where to end such a list. We wonder if it is actually possible anymore for politicians to do the right thing. Can they? This is the question Falling Together is mostly about, although there are plenty more engaging ideas in this remarkable book: ancestry and DNA diagnoses, the ever-increasing power of data-gathering systems (owned by the 1 percent and used against the 99 percent), Madison's concern about "factions" updated, and much more.
Mr. Anderson has chosen to make a Republican candidate the hero of his tale, but he could just as well have gone the other way around. I suspect he chose R, because the D slot in 2012 is occupied by President Obama and he didn't want his book to center on an actual person. In any event, we are given a cluster of wonderfully imagined characters to match an interesting plot, as well as many things to think about. If you are interested in American politics, Falling Together is a must read.
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Falling Together Randolph Anderson 9781466291232 Books Reviews
That Falling Together is a first novel should not put readers off. It is skilfully constructed, full of lively dialogue and popping with ideas. As a political novel, Falling Together focuses on Senator Ralph Mason, a Senator, a prosperous former businessman, and candidate for the Republican Party nomination for President in the 2012. It is also a novel about how the political class in America lives and moves and has its being. Another central character is liberal history professor, Denny Scharf, who is put off by money-driven Republicans, yet comes to see his own limitations by the end of the novel. The third story-line belongs to Ralph's sister, Jean, who becomes the mediating character in the novel. Through her actions, the novel builds to some pretty startling conclusions--good and bad--about the American political system.
Yet Anderson's novel is more than just another Primary Colors. It is also a novel of ideas. Ideas are movers and shakers in this intensely political world. Ideas don't retard the action; they drive it. The development of IT and its use in campaigns; the genome and its capacity for political mischief in revealing racial and ethnic make-up; how much freedom we have as individuals or political actors; and, above all, the crisis of the American republic these moral and philosophical concerns are politically and personally real for the characters. Above all else stuff happens in Falling Together.
But Falling Together is not just a easy rant against politics and politicians. It is serious exploration of the perilous state of the republic, as conceived by the novel's main characters. Anderson has also done the nearly impossible--make a conservative Republican humanly and political plausible. In fact, if the novel has a flaw, it is the underdeveloped nature of the novel's main liberal character, Denny. Still, Falling Together is a serious and thoughtful novel. First novel or not, it is "contemporary" in the best sense, a real achievement.
A fascinating read that cuts so close to current reality that you keep looking back at the publication date and calculating when it was actually written to figure out just how prescient the author is. The author provides deep insights into political and personal motivations as well as some of the mechanics of campaigns (think the film Ides of March, but deeper and more thoughtful). As other reviewers noted, the book is replete with ideas; I sort of wished I'd read it along with a friend so that I could have discussed the ideas each day. As such it would be a great pick for generating book club discussion.
As an inside-the-beltline denizen, Randolph's unique perspective on the gamesmanship in today's national political arena is both enlightening and frightening and makes the reader realize that increasingly so more is at stake in our national elections than just the next four years of a continuing political cycle. Our republic has come to a cross roads in rediscovering the essence of what it means to be a citizen of this great country and the personal responsibility of both the elected officials and voters to uphold the ideals of the founders and the constitution in their decision making - the elected officials at the public alter of our congressional legislature and the voters at the private alter of their voting booths. Denny with his musings and reflections represents the collective consciousness that is emerging amongst the populace to discern the path between warring factions for fixing what is broken and reinforcing that which is laudable in our system of governance, which while flawed, is the best yet to grace mankind in his evolving society on this planet.
Review of Randolph Anderson's Falling Together
By James W. Moorman
Randolph Anderson's Falling Together is several things a political novel, a novel of ideas, a first novel, and, most important, a novel our entire political class should read - read and be required to write book reports so voters could judge how well each politician understood what they had read.
Falling Together is the story of a candidate, Ralph Mason, for the Republican nomination for President in the 2012 election. Anderson's 2012 election campaign, a fictional campaign, is, thank God, not the one that the American voter actually sees and reads about as the real primaries approach.
Evan a writer as skilled as Mr. Anderson could never have imagined the amazing spectacle we are witnessing and that has entertained us to despair. Rather, Falling Together is an "alternative-universe" view of 2012 where things happen that we can only wish would happen in the actual world of today's politics.
Mr. Anderson's novel is stuffed full of interesting ideas, but more than anything else, it is a meditation on doing the right thing. It's no secret that Americans are at the moment dismayed by the crassness of their political class prevarication, mendacity, excessive partisanship, character assassination, sexual misconduct, greed and graft, hypocrisy, ignorance, know-nothingness, dirty tricks, manipulation, small mindedness, ineptitude, recklessness. It's hard to know where to end such a list. We wonder if it is actually possible anymore for politicians to do the right thing. Can they? This is the question Falling Together is mostly about, although there are plenty more engaging ideas in this remarkable book ancestry and DNA diagnoses, the ever-increasing power of data-gathering systems (owned by the 1 percent and used against the 99 percent), Madison's concern about "factions" updated, and much more.
Mr. Anderson has chosen to make a Republican candidate the hero of his tale, but he could just as well have gone the other way around. I suspect he chose R, because the D slot in 2012 is occupied by President Obama and he didn't want his book to center on an actual person. In any event, we are given a cluster of wonderfully imagined characters to match an interesting plot, as well as many things to think about. If you are interested in American politics, Falling Together is a must read.
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