Book to Movie: Damnation Alley (1977)

Book to Movie: Damnation Alley (1977)
Directed by Jack Smight
Screenplay by Alan Sharp based on the novel by Roger Zelazny

Roger Zelazy’s post apocalyptic novel of a transcontinental journey made the transition to film in 1977 – the same year Star Wars was released. It was panned by critics and when contrasted with the exciting, fun filled Star Wars, the sometimes dull, sometimes banal, Damnation Alley was found badly wanting.

I said in my review of the novel that I liked the movie when I first saw it and I did. I said I saw it again for the first time just a few years ago and liked it, and I did. I watched it again a few nights ago after having read the novel, and I like it a lot less now.

To say that it is loosely based on Zelazny’s novel is giving Zelazny too much credit (or blame ) for the film. There is a character named Tanner and he makes a cross country journey in an R.V. on steroids. There, the similarities end.

The movie begins with Air Force officers launching missiles and watching inbound missiles in what we can assume is World War III. Most of the United States is wiped out. With the United States as we know it gone, Tanner (played by Jan Michael Vincent) and his buddy, Keegan (played ably by Paul Warfield) drop out of the military, but still live on the base since it is the only inhabitable place in the desert.

There is a scene near the opening of the movie that is so bad that it had to put theater goers – especially those that had seen Star Wars – off their popcorn. Tanner is riding across the desert while Keegan, high atop a tower at the base watches him. As he rides in with a mannequin on the back of his bike, he is chased by giant scorpions. I know the director and screenwriter were trying to show us how dramatically the earth’s ecology had changed since the war, but the special effects are so bad and the scene so needless, the movie would have been better served to have just left it in an editing bay.

The idea for departure is set when an accidental fire starts inside the military base that detonates a bunch of explosives, killing everybody inside except for Tanner, Keegan, Lt. Perry (the expendable character) and Major Eugene Denton. Somewhere in the time between the apocalypse and the explosion, Denton and some of his people construct two Landmaster vehicles to drive across the country. Denton has plotted a course to Albany because Albany is the only city that has sent out a signal. He calls his course, Damnation Alley.

The two Landmasters set out from the California desert. Tanner is riding with Denton and Keegan with Perry. They soon encounter a storm and Perry is killed and their Landmaster damaged. Keegan transfers his gear aboard and joins Tanner and Denton. Perry and the second Landmaster were entirely extraneous and served no useful purpose in the plot.

Before long, they arrive in Las Vegas. The three start playing the slots and having fun in the deserted casinos when they find a woman – a former showgirl named Janice – who decides to join the party. With a woman aboard to make things more interesting, they head east from Vegas.

They arrive in an unnamed town where they try to find gasoline. Instead, they find giant, carnivorous cockroaches that devour the unfortunate Keegan. The rest of the party makes their escape.

As they continue their cross country odyssey, they find an adolescent boy who is living alone after his father died in a fall. He first attacks them with rocks, but ends up joining them. Now, the female gets to be a mother figure since she’s never really assigned to be anyone’s love interest. They are once again a party of four.

At yet another fateful stop for gasoline, the party encounters a group of depraved renegades who want to steal their supplies and rape their women. Billy plays a clever trick on the leader of the group and they are able to escape.

As they near Detroit, the transmission in their vehicle starts to grind. So, finding Detroit to be one big junkyard (how prescient) they decide to stop there to try to find parts to make repairs. While there, a giant storm causes Lake St. Claire to flood the city and the vehicle (which is also amphibious) takes to the sea. They eventually make landfall and continue east where they discover signs of life.

Finally, while camped out in a wooded area, they hear on the radio music being broadcast from Albany. They make contact with the people of Albany and head off to join civilization.

The movie’s special effects were dated when the movie was made, but still lend themselves to creating the feeling of desolation in a post apocalyptic world. Some of the 70s kitsch in the movie is cool such as Jan Michael Vincent’s haircut. But the C.B. culture that was coming to and end at about this time is nauseating.

The weakest point of the movie is its seeming lack of focus or real goal. They leave the desert for no apparent reason. They go to Albany and in between a bunch of unrelated events transpire. The characters have no real chemistry. It tried early in the film to develop some tension between Tanner and Denton with Denton playing the strict military type and Tanner as the renegade, care free spirit. But the director didn’t develop this at all beyond some obligatory opening scenes.

As in most cases, the movie was not nearly as good as the book. It could have been better had the screenwriter used Zelazny’s characters and his motivation for them. Instead, they took Zelazny’s idea of a post apocalyptic crossing of the continent and tried to tell a different story. Zelazny’s story was much better. According to IMDB, Mr. Zelazny approved the original script, but the shooting script was much different and he was not too pleased with the final product. It’s not difficult to discern why.

Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny

Damnation Alley
By Roger Zelazny
Copyright 1968

In an undefined time, much of the United States has been decimated my nuclear war. Civilization exists on the west coast and in parts of the eastern United States. What lies between is radioactive waste. That radioactive wasteland is beset by storms of rain, rocks, and cyclones. It is this stretch of land from Nevada to Massachusetts that Hell Tanner must cross.

Hell Tanner, aptly named, is an outlaw. The leader of a biker gang that terrorizes the Barbary Coast of California, he is finally arrested at a serendipitous time. Shortly after his arrest, the forces of the law wipe out his gang.

Hell Tanner is also one hell of a driver and his services are needed by what’s left of American civilization. A man has crossed the vast wasteland of middle America known as Damnation Alley to tell the nation of California that the nation of Boston is being attacked by a plague. The only known serum for the plague is in California. It must get through to Boston if that half of the continent is going to survive.

Nuclear war has dramatically altered the climate and weather patterns of the world. Where aircraft once flew routinely, there are constant winds of hundreds of miles per hour, carrying in them sand, rocks, boulders, and other debris, making flight impossible. The only way to travel in this post-nuclear world is by ground transportation.

Tanner is offered a full pardon for all of the crimes and debauchery he has committed in a life dedicated to crime and debauchery. In exchange for this pardon, he will traverse Damnation Alley with the vaccine and deliver it safely to Boston. With his gang wiped out and facing a life of imprisonment, he readily agrees.

Three R.V. type vehicles set out east from Los Angeles to make the delivery to Boston. These are not your ordinary recreational vehicles. They run on an octet of tires. They are equipped with flame throwers, 50 millimeter guns, grenade launchers, and heavy cannons with which to do battle with the giant bats, gila monsters, and other mutant creatures that inhabit Damnation Alley.

The three vehicles, each manned with two man crews, sets out from California. It’s not long before one is lost in a storm. The other simply disappears later, leaving Tanner and his partner, Greg, to make the trek alone.

They arrive in an oasis in the waste near what was Salt Lake City. There, they make repairs, enjoy a meal, and meet the president of Salt Lake City. They learn that the man who delivered the message from Boston had passed that way also and had come across the country on the ruins of U.S. 40. Tanner decides to take that route.

As they near the middle of country in the vicinity of St. Louis, Greg becomes increasingly agitated and anxious. They have reached the point where there will soon be no option of return. Their craft has weathered the showers of rocks and boulders that fall from the pink, murky, sky. They have defeated or avoided the monsters that haunt the land. But Greg can’t deal with crossing the “Mighty Missus Hip” and being left without the option of turning back. Tanner is forced to beat him into unconsciousness and bind him. Tanner is now left alone to drive the second half of Damnation Alley.

The missiles of the enemy rained down upon the large cities in the Midwest and Tanner assiduously avoids St. Louis and Dayton. Large craters occasionally pock the landscape, revealing ground zero of the missiles as they hit terra firma. He is forced to go miles out of his way to avoid these craters, using precious fuel.

For my friends who grew up in southeastern Ohio, it is the bridge that spans the Ohio River from Belpre, OH to Parkersburg, WV, that Tanner utilizes to cross over the Ohio. I wonder if he paid the toll. . .

Tanner is caught in a particularly bad storm near Albany, New York and decides to wait it out. When the storm is over, he finds that his vehicle is stuck in mud. Fortunately, he encounters a farmer who offers to help him free up the vehicle. Tanner, worried about Greg who has been unconscious for several days, asks if there is medical help available. The farmer and his sons transport Tanner and Greg to a small town nearby where they live. There, Tanner the outlaw gangster and killer, enjoys a few days of genuine Midwestern hospitality.

Greg is left in the care of a country doctor who tells Tanner he’s given Greg a pretty severe concussion and possibly a skull fracture. Tanner is left to go it alone. He is warned the road between Albany and Boston is terrorized by various gangs and marauders who prey on those fleeing the plague stricken Boston. Tanner, with his vehicle free of the muck that held it, sets off on the last leg of Damnation Alley to deliver the vaccine and earn his pardon.

It’s not long before a gang of motorcyclists attacks him, not realizing the mighty firepower contained within the post apocalyptic R.V. With a couple grenades and strafes of machine gun fire, he wipes out the gang. He stops to survey the carnage and notices that one is left alive. Upon closer inspection, he finds out that it is a woman who has survived his barrage. Apparently as bereft of human feeling and loyalty as Hell Tanner himself, she dispassionately leaves behind her dead comrades and joins Tanner on the last leg of his journey.

Tanner finds that he has missed human company since leaving his partner behind in the small town outside of Albany. He and Cornelia pass the time amiably; two outlaw free spirits miscast as saviors of the eastern United States. For the first time in his life, Tanner feels the dim stirrings of love.

Less than 100 miles outside of Boston, Tanner and Cornelia are pursued by a gang of more than 100 well armed motorcyclists who are adept at shooting out the tires of Tanners vehicle. Tanner unleashes the full firepower of the vast weaponry at his disposal. Despite all the weaponry he unloads on them, they still persist and manage to deflate several of his tires. They soon run into a storm that drops upon them several large boulders, damaging the armor on their vehicle. Low on fuel, their ammunition spent, and their vehicle unable to advance, they abandon it and head east on motorcycles with the carton carrying the vaccine strapped to Tanner’s bike.

Just 50 miles outside of Boston, the roads begin to improve. They pass several vehicles carrying families fleeing Boston, heading west to anywhere where there was not plague. As they are cruising the highway toward Boston, a single sniper shot rings out and Cordelia falls dead with a gunshot to the chest. Tanner returns fire with a grenade and blows up their assailant. He pauses to bury Cordelia the best he can with his bare hands. He parks her bike atop her makeshift grave and inscribes in the paint on the gas tank, Her name was Cordelia. I don’t know how old she was or where she came from, but she was Hell Tanner’s girl and I loved her.

Here, Zelazny pauses in his narrative to ask his reader to imagine setting without plot or characters. He describes the altered geological processes of the earth that lift water, fish, coral, rocks and debris from the surface of the earth and transport them high into the air, to be dropped on Damnation Alley. As the story draws to its climax, we learn what makes Damnation Alley the most dangerous place in the world.

Just a few miles outside of Boston, Tanner is met by another gang. Outgunned and out manned, Tanner is taken. His bike is driven by a gang member approximately half a mile up the road and parked. As well armed men line the road waiting for him, Tanner is ordered to try to get his bike.

But Tanner has a few tricks left. He tosses two grenades that take out a bulk of the gang lining the road. But a few men (quite pissed now) remain, and they put a bullet into him. As he lies bleeding in the road, they torment him by riding circles around him, running over his hands and kicking at him. As one of the bikes passes him, a foot peg catches his clothing and starts to drag him along the street. Bereft of firearms and grenades, he has but a boot knife and a lighter with which to fight for his life. He uses the dagger to puncture a hole in the gas tank of the bike and the lighter to set afire the fuel that flows from it, killing his assailant.

Now wounded by a bullet and burned from the conflagration of the burning bike, a beaten and battered Tanner tries to traverse the last ten miles of road that lie between him and Boston. He is delirious with pain and exhaustion. He drives for a little while and finally pulls off to the side and falls in a heap of exhaustion.

As he sleeps, he dreams of a priest, who has come from Albany to pray for the salvation of Albany. He asks to pray for Hell Tanner, if he will only reveal his name. Tanner will not. Tanner says he drives. He drives even though he is afraid. He drives because he has become part of his machine. He drives not for the people of Boston. He will not tell the priest his name. The priest tells him he cannot pray for him if he knows not his name.

Tanner awakens from his dream disoriented, recalling the horrible events of his cross country odyssey through Damnation Alley. Weakened by his wound and the physical and mental demands of his journey, he pushes the bike to the road for the final push toward Boston.

He finally arrives on the outskirts of Boston and it occurs to him he has no idea where he is supposed to take the vaccine once he gets there. The city appears all but deserted with just a few buildings lit. He stops his bike and attempts to enter one. A bullet strikes the building, just missing him and police officers warn him not to move and tell him he is under arrest for looting. He puts his hands up as instructed. But before doing so, he pulls the pin on his remaining grenade. The cops realize that they can’t shoot him or he will blow them up. He presents his pardon papers and shows them the vaccine. His hand is weakening and it is becoming increasingly difficult for him to hold the trigger of the grenade.

The cops toss him into the car and rush him toward the hospital. As they cross the River Charles, Tanner tosses his last grenade which explodes harmlessly in the water below. He arrives and delivers the vaccine. His pardon is final and complete.

The book closes with a statue of Hell Tanner erected in Boston Common. Soon after it is placed, it is vandalized and there is little doubt as to who has committed the defacing act. An anti-hero must remain and anti-hero. Tanner sets out for parts unknown, leaving no forwarding address. The majestic statue of Hell Tanner astride a great Harley Davidson stands on Boston Common to present hope for posterity, subjected to the indignities of a climate made inhospitable by humankind’s inhumanity.

Damnation Alley might best be termed bubblegum science fiction. The creatures that inhabit Damnation Alley are straight out of B-movie material. The story is bereft of subplots. Hell Tanner is not a man given to flights of introspection. He has no character arc. Other than a few days of love for a woman whom he did not take the time to learn anything about, Tanner remained a passionless person, driven only by his desire to be free and his desire to drive.

Zelazny’s prose is sparse. Except for the description of the earth’s new climate and geological changes and the dream sequence with the priest, Zelazny is not given to rhetorical fancy. Except for a few, seemingly randomly placed vignettes that describe events in crisis panicked Boston, the story is straight forward with no subplots. The characters are unrefined and have just enough backstory and development to tell the story.

One of the axioms of fictional writing is that your main character must go through some sort of change to make a story successful – what professional writers of books and screenplays call the character arc. Tanner has no character arc. He leaves Boston the same man he was when he left California. One can’t help but admire a writer who breaks the fundamental rules of the craft and successfully tells an interesting tale.

Like bubblegum, the tale was sweet and pleasurable to sink your teeth into. The book was fun to read. With a plot that is well paced and an anti-hero that is likable, yet despicable, Damnation Alley is worthy of being mentioned with some of the better works of science fiction. One can't help but think that perhaps the highly regarded Mad Max trilogy was not inspired somewhat by Zelazny's tale.

The novel was made into a movie starring Jan-Michael Vincent. It is only loosely based on Zelazny’s tale. Most fans of science fiction cinema seem to despise it. I saw it when it first came out in 1977 when I was just 11 years old and I liked it. I saw it a second time just a few years ago and I liked it again. I would not call it a great movie, but I have seen movies deemed great by critics and science fiction aficionados That I’ve enjoyed less.

The Dark Tower Book 5: The Wolves of the Calla

The Dark Tower Book 5: The Wolves of the Calla
By Stephen King
Copyright 2003

It had been six years since the publication of the last Dark Tower novel, Wizard and Glass. Instead of picking up where we left off with our ka-tet headed west, we instead start the next chapter of our tale in Calla Bryn Sturgis, a farming community far from the center of anything.

In Calla Bryn Sturgis, children are almost always born as twins. Once every 23 years or so, the wolves come from neighboring Thunderclap to take one of every pair. Resistance is met with swift and harsh retribution. The children are taken and disappear for weeks. They are then returned, via train, “roont” (ruined) – completely lacking in intellect and willpower. They are little more than mildly sentient animals.

The people of Calla Bryn Sturgis receive a warning from their resident robot, Andy, that the time of the wolves is near. The ranchers and farmers of the town brace themselves for parents’ worst nightmare. However, their spiritual leader, none other than Father Callahan – late of Jerusalem’s Lot – tells them that Gunslingers approach from the east and may be of service.

The ka-tet is indeed on the road west, but they have no idea for how long they have been traveling. As the world and universe break down. Time moves in fits and jumps. Compass points become meaningless. The simply follow the path of the beam.

One night, while camped, Roland serves the ka –tet mushrooms that are supposed to give one strange dreams – or dreams that are really more than dreams. Eddie and Jake travel together back to New York of 1977 – back to the Manhattan Restaurant of the mind – the bookstore where Jake acquired his riddle book. Among the books advertised on the sign are those of none other than Stephen King.

Jake and Eddie watch, unobserved by the shop’s proprietor, Calvin Tower, as Jake of another time purchases his riddle book. Jake notices something strikingly different about the book. The author’s name has changed. In the first go-around, the book was written by a lady named Beryl Evans. The book Jake observes himself lay on the counter for purchase is the same book written by Claudia Y Inez Bachman.. The name has 19 letters in it. The number 19 has taken on a talismanic property for the ka-tet as every event in their life seems to add up to 19.

Jake and Eddie watch Jake of 1977 depart from the book store. They stand near Tower of Power Records and watch as a gray town car pulls up. Eddie recognizes its occupants right away. It’s his old nemesis from 1986 – none other than Enrico Balazar – the drug dealer with whom Eddie and Roland shot it out as Roland pulled Eddie into his world in The Drawing of the Three. Enrico and his goons go into the bookstore. Eddie has a hunch that Balazar is not the reading type.

Able to watch events unobserved, Eddie and Jake return to the bookstore as Enrico reminds Mr. Tower that they have a business deal. It seems that Mr. Tower owns the corner lot – the corner lot where Jake discovered the magical rose growing amidst the garbage and debris. Balazar reminds Tower that he has promised Balazar’s partners – the Sombra Corporation – first rights of purchase of the lot and that agreement is due to expire. Balazar wants that transaction transacted. Tower doesn’t want to sell, but assures Balazar he has no plans to sell it to anyone else. Balazar assures him that he will indeed sell and that he will return to complete the transaction.

Meanwhile, Susannah is off on her own trip – except it isn’t Susannah inhabiting Susannah’s body anymore. Once divided into split personalities, the wily Detta Walker and the passive Odetta Holmes, she was fused into one. Now, a new personality has emerged. Mia, Daughter of None, takes off into the wilderness. Mia is with child, but it’s not husband Eddie’s brood. It is the child of the demon who Susannah captured with her feminine wiles to assure Jake’s safe passage into Roland’s world.

Mia dreams that she is feasting at tables filled with great meat and delicacies. Roland follows and observes Susannah as she eats frogs and other wilderness dwellers. Roland knows that this situation is going to complicate matters, but keeps the secret from the rest of the ka-tet – including Susannah who is unaware that Mia exists much the way that Detta and Odetta did not know of each other.

As Father Callahan prophesized, the Gunslingers arrive in Calla Bryn Sturgis. The folk of the village are divided on what to do about their problem. Many want to employ the services of Gunslingers to kill the wolves and stop the generational kidnapping. Others – mostly those without kids – don’t want any interference for fear that the wolves will destroy the town and take the kids anyway as has happened with past resistance.

Roland agrees to survey the situation and determine whether or not he and his fellow Gunslingers can be of assistance. They meet with Father Callahan who serves as the spiritual guide and representative of the “Man Jesus” for the people of the hamlet. Eddie and Jake are shocked to learn that Father Callahan is of their “when” and of there “where” as well, having gone from ‘Salem’s Lot after fleeing the vampire Kurt Barlow to New York.

Callahan tells them his tale. Having been forced to suckle at Barlow’s neck in the Glick kitchen during his fateful encounter in ‘Salem’s Lot, Callahan fled to New York and started work in a shelter and soup kitchen for alcoholics. An alcoholic himself, he fit in. Now marked by Barlow, he is no longer a priest, but tries to carry on with good works in helping at the shelter. He soon finds out that vampires are not confined to small Maine towns. There are vampires in New York as well – although not as powerful as Kurt Barlow who is what Callahan calls a “Type 1” vampire – a powerful being capable of creating vampires with his bite.

Observing his closest friend in New York fall victim to one of the lower “Type 3” vampires, Callahan kills it and sets out to kill all the vampires he can find. His activities soon register with the agents of the Crimson King – the notorious Low Men – who make it their mission to hunt him down and kill him for Type 3 vampires do the bidding of the Low Men who are the Crimson King’s agents in our world. Callahan travels the country, in and out of sobriety and finally ends up in Detroit where he is lured into a trap and seemingly killed in 1983. Instead of dying forever, he arrives in Roland’s world. He arrives in a cave near Calla Bryn Sturgis and with him arrives a black sphere – part of Maerlyn’s Rainbow known as Black 13 – the most evil of all of the talismans that compose the Rainbow.

Roland has his ka-tet spread out among the people to get the lay of the land and to ascertain who is for them and who is against them. After several days of reconnoitering, Roland gathers the people and tells them as Gunslingers, the last of the Line of Eld, they will honor their duty and help the people.

Roland and his ka-tet have several problems to solve. First, they must devise a plan to defeat the wolves about which little is known. Only one living person has actually killed a wolf and observed its dead body up close. Also, there is the matter of Enrico Balazar and the Sombra Corporation back in New York 1977 acquiring the land upon which the rose grows. For if that rose is destroyed, the Tower will certainly fall. Thirdly, Susannah, now aware that someone else is living inside her head and another life form is gestating in her belly, must determine how to deal with the eminent birth of the unholy infant she carries.

Using Black 13, Eddie is able to pass through a door (nearly an exact replica of the doors Roland encountered on the beach in the Drawing of the Three) to return to New York of 1977. There, he is able to rescue Calvin Tower from Balazar’s thugs who are torturing him. Eddie tells Tower that he wants to purchase that lot himself and has the vast financial resources of the Holmes Dental Co. (the company owned by Odetta’s father) to back up the purchase.

Tower is a packrat and hoarder and is reluctant to give up the property – the last piece of a larger plot owned by his family for generations. Faced with having to deal with Balazar, who will certainly be back seeking retribution for Eddie’s handiwork on his henchmen, Tower agrees. However, he forces Eddie to take back to Roland’s world for safekeeping, his shelf of his most treasured books. Eddie agrees and transports the shelf full of books back to the doorway cave. He instructs Tower to make himself scarce somewhere in rural New England where Balazar will not find him. Tower is to have a friend write the ZIP code as graffito on the fence surrounding the vacant lot. Eddie plans to return later and get that ZIP code so he can find Tower when the time comes to consummate the land transaction.

Jake and his billy bumbler, Oy stay on one of the larger ranches with the ranch’s foreman and his son. Jake and the foreman’s son Benny Slightman become fast friends and spend many days playing as ten year old boys are wont to do. But Jake has not forgotten the face of his father and is still a Gunslinger. While playing the days away, Jake is also carefully observing the terrain and the people around him. He is confident that Benny Slightman’s father is a spy for whomever controls the wolves after seeing the elder Slightman and Andy the robot journey off toward Thunderclap together.

One night, Jake sneaks out to do a little recon and finds a military installation built by the old people. He enters it to find a vast array of computers – some built by IBM and Microsoft. There are also many monitors that show various parts of Calla Bryn Sturgis – including Father Callahan’s living room. While searching the building, he hears the approach of Andy and Slightman. He hides and listens as Slightman and Andy communicate with another person through the computers, telling them of the plan that Roland has devised to hide the children and annihilate the wolves. Slightman has turned traitor to protect his son who was born a twin, but whose sister died in an accident.

On the eve of the battle, Eddie goes back to New York 1977 one more time to get that ZIP code. He finds that Balazar’s thugs have taken care of the Restaurant of the Mind by burning it to the ground. But he also finds that someone has scrawled a Maine ZIP code on the fence, just as planned. He then travels to that rural Maine town and leaves a message for Tower’s buddy Aaron Deepneau to tell him to sit tight, that he is coming soon.

The ka-tet, which now includes Father Callahan, meets one final time on the eve of battle. Roland lays out the real plan to secure the children far away from battle and to draw the wolves he knows to be robots into a trap. Eddie lures Andy the robot into a trap and kills him. Susannah convinces herself, if not the others, that she is no longer carrying a gestating being in her womb, pointing out the reduced size of her hips and breasts. She convinces them she is ready to fight.

Roland deploys his forces. He has the women of Calla Bryn Sturgis, who specialize in throwing sharp edged plates and his ka-tet lined up as the wolves approach on the day predicted. As they await the approach, Roland confronts the elder Slightman with his treachery. Roland promises not to out him or kill him if he fights with honor. Slightman tells him that the twins have an organic compound in them that those who command the wolves extract from them to use for "mind food" for people called, "Breakers." They are those who have strong mental powers put to work in the service of the Crimson King to break the remaining beams that support the Dark Tower. We have already encountered two of these breakers in Ted Brautigan in Hearts in Atlantis and the young boy from Black House.

The wolves approach on horseback, bearing lightsabers and devices called sneetches with are little gold, explosive balls they hurl to track their prey. The battle ensues, is fought, and won, but at a price. Young Benny Slightman is among the dead, having been hit by a sneetch.

As they celebrate their victory, Eddie and Roland notice that Susannah has disappeared. Just as the battle is to start, Mia/Susannah goes into labor. For the first time, they speak with each other and strike a deal. Susannah agrees to birth the being in exchange for being allowed to fight with her ka-tet. Mia agrees to the terms and even agrees to help in the battle if it will preserve their lives.

After the battle, she flees to the doorway cave. Having no legs, she uses her wheel chair to take her as far as it can. Then, she finds an ATV left there for her by Andy the Robot. She gets to the cave, grabs Black 13, safely stored in its protective box, and passes through the door, effectively sealing it for Roland and the others.

Roland and the ka-tet arrive at the cave too late. As Eddie bemoans the loss of his beloved, Roland turns to study Tower’s bookshelf. He notices that the fastidious Tower has deposited one volume in the shelf upside down. He removes it and immediately notes the resemblance between the church drawn on the black cover and the church in Calla Bryn Sturgis. He asks Eddie to read the title and the author. Eddie says the book is called ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King. Neither Jake nor Eddie can ever recall having heard of Stephen King, but note the title is the same as the New England town that Father Callahan fled. He flips through the book and stops at page 119 where he reads aloud how Father Callahan presided over the funeral of Danny Glick – Barlow’s first victim in ‘Salem’s Lot.

Callahan seizes the book and begins reading an account of his life in ‘Salem’s Lot as if it were a work of fiction. He declares that he is not a fictional character, but a real man who has lived a real life. The book ends with the broken ka-tet pondering how they will get to New York and save Susannah as well as finding their way to Maine to save Calvin Tower and acquire the most valuable piece of real estate in Manhattan and the entire universe.

I recall reeling from the revelations in this book as they unfolded. First, there was the appearance of the lightsabers which are lightsabers exactly as those contrived by George Lucas in Star Wars. The sneetches are embossed with the manufacturing stamp of the Sombra Corporation and are denoted as being the “Harry Potter” model. Then there was the insertion of a Stephen King novel into a Stephen King novel and having a character from that novel read parts of that novel. Never before have I read anything resembling this.

Those who are uninitiated into the world of the Dark Tower are wont to dismiss this as either foolish tripe or unfettered hubris on the part of the author. It is neither. King is a masterful writer and his introduction of these items and events are melded perfectly into the story, even if they are as of yet unexplained.

Nor is this the first time King has mentioned himself or his works in one of his own works of fiction. He pokes a little fun at himself early in The Tommyknockers when one of the residents of Haven, Maine is reflecting on the quality of the work of western writer, Bobbi Anderson who is the primary character in that novel. He thinks that she writes real books, not like that guy up in Bangor who writes that trashy horror stuff. Note that he even gets his alter ego, Richard Bachman, into the mix by giving the authorship of Charley the Choo Choo to Claudia Inez Bachman which is the fictional wife of King's pen name.

As noted earlier, King has sprinkled elements of some of the greatest western, fantasy, and science fiction into the body of the Dark Tower. The Arthur legend, the Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, and Harry Potter all appear, unabashedly utilized by King without alteration. This is part homage and part . . .well the other reason for its appearance is fleshed out just a little more in the next book, The Song of Susannah.

Much like Wizard and Glass, The Wolves of the Calla almost stands alone as a story unto itself. While the stage is set for the final pursuit of the Dark Tower, most of the action in the novel reads like a western with good guys riding into town to save the day for the hapless residents; bad guys on the move to take the town, shootouts, etc. The story is about defeating the wolves that come from Thunderclap. The end sets up the story that King, in the afterword, assures us has already been written and is in rough draft form. Dark Tower fans were grateful for this reassurance because King remarked on several occasions that the story had become too big for him and he didn’t know where he was going to take it. The next novel was but one year away. We would know Roland’s ultimate fate before the end of the decade.

This book was better than Wizard and Glass because it took place in real time as opposed to flasback, but is still weaker than Drawing of the Three, The Wastelands, or the two that followed. Nonetheless, King startled his audience with brilliant and original storytelling at the end and authored one of the finest, if not the finest, cliffhanger ending of a novel ever.

Ender’s Game By Orson Scott Card

Ender’s Game
By Orson Scott Card
Copyright 1985

Ender Wiggin lives in a future where, when most families are restricted to having just two children, he is a third. The government has monitored his two older siblings and found promise in their genes of a great warrior, so they allowed the Wiggins to have one more. As a third, he is often the subject of ridicule and bullying.

Each child has a monitor placed on her neck that allows government and military officials to study their psychology and actions to determine if they have promise for the military, as they prepare for another strike by their mortal enemy, the Buggers, who attacked and nearly wiped out the human race decades ago. After watching Ender Wiggin deftly dispose of a bully, the military thinks it has perhaps found their new leader who will once and for all crush the Bugger army. But Ender Wiggin is just six years old.

Ender is whisked away from his parents, his older sister, Valentine whom he loves, and his older, sadistic brother, Peter, whom he fears. He is transported to a military academy where he is housed with other boys and girls his age, deemed exceptional and prime candidates for military training.

At Battle School, Ender finds himself isolated and alone. Younger than the other kids, and recognized as being the most exceptional, Ender finds solace in practicing his warrior skills in the various drills and tactics. He quickly moves up in his class and eventually becomes the best tactician in the school.

On his off time from drills and class, he takes to a video game in which he fights giants and children who turn into wolves. The game is seemingly purposeless, but provides diversion for Ender. Those games haunt his dreams at night.

Meanwhile, his brother and sister have struck an unlikely alliance to foster world peace. As the world cooperates globally to prepare for the inevitable Bugger attack, they still feud with each other. As relations between the United States and the Soviet Union heat up, Peter resolves that he and Valentine will start publishing on “The Nets” scholarly writings that will be so powerful as to influence world opinion.

Peter’s goal is world domination – a lofty goal for a child of 10. Valentine is horrified and reluctant to participate. But she sees an opportunity to perhaps use her abilities to temper whatever evil Peter has in mind.

Recognizing in his sister the ability to influence people with her words, he recruits her to be the writer for characters he dubs Demosthenese and Locke. Demosthenese will advocate diplomacy and an easing of tensions. Locke will push for a more hostile position. The relationship between the two nom de plumes will be as symbiotic as the relationship between Peter, who thinks for both identities, and Valentine who puts the opposing thoughts of the two into words that do indeed drive public opinion.

Ender quickly rises to be the commander of his own army in the battle games conducted in a zero gravity chamber. His new army, the Dragon Army, is made up of the students with whom he had the best chemistry in his previous drills. At the head of his own army, the school’s commandant pushes Ender two win increasingly difficult battles in which he is overmatched. They increase the pace of the drills by having his army fight several battles a day against increasingly difficult odds. Ender and his army meet every challenge, and Ender is promoted to Command School.

Upon arriving at Command School, Ender fines himself under the difficult tutelage of Mazer Rackham, the leader of the army that drove off the bugger armies in the second attack which was nearly fatal to Earth. Rackham scolds him, lectures him, beats him, and torments him as he goes about his training to learn to command entire fleets of ships.

Ender’s fleet is led by Battle School elite graduates – many of whom trained with Ender and were trained by Ender. Day after day, Ender and his army are put through the paces of increasingly difficult battle scenarios. Sometimes they triumph and sometimes they take great losses, but no matter how difficult the scenario, Ender’s forces manage victory.

Finally, he and his army get to their final exam – an assault on a planet guarded by an overwhelming force of ships. Ender’s fleet feints and parries, taking losses along the way. Eventually, Ender penetrates the planet’s defenses and unleashes a doomsday weapon known as a Molecular Disruption Device. All living creatures on the Bugger planet are destroyed. Ender’s fleet emerges victorious in their final simulated showdown.

After the exercise is over, Ender’s superiors inform him that none of the battles he’d fought since arriving at Command School were drills, but actual battles in with real killing. Ender has just destroyed the home planet of the insectile race known as The Buggers and destroyed all of their queens. The young Ender, unable to mentally cope with having just committed genocide, lapses into a deep, depressive sleep that lasts for weeks.

When he awakens, Valentine is there to greet him. She tells him that war has broken out on Earth and that Peter has emerged as a leader of an alliance known as the Hegemony. She wants to get away from Earth. Ender, deemed to powerful and dangerous to be allowed to return to Earth, joins her as they set out to settle on one of the Bugger worlds, now rid of their indigenous populations.

Upon arriving on the planet, the new settlers scout out locations for settlements. While scouting, Ender happens across a live Bugger cocoon whose inhabitant is able to communicate with him telepathically. The Bugger tells Ender that they did not realize at first that humans were an intelligent race. Upon learning it during their second attack, they broke it off and resolved to never attack the human race again. They were willing to live in peace when Ender wiped out their species.

Resolved to tell the tale of the Buggers and have the truth published, Ender writes a history of their race under the pseudonym, Speaker for the Dead. After this is done, he sets off with Valentine to find a world to re-establish the Bugger race.

This book was one selected by my book club. Knowing that it is one of the most respected science fiction novels ever written, I was eager to read it.

I wish I had read it when I was much younger. In my teen years, I’d have reveled in these characters. My middle-aged brain found it difficult to fathom that these children could have thoughts, ideas, and reasoning as complex as these kids did. Card establishes these characters’ age, but writes them as they were adults. This was our entire group’s chief criticism of the book.

I did not see the twist coming. I knew there were not enough pages left in the book in which to write an entire battle. I knew a resolution was coming. But I did not see the clever twist.

Card’s writing is among the most compelling I’ve ever read. The term, “page turner” is too often used to describe books, I think. However, Card’s nifty narrative trick of having the two military officers analyze and discuss what had just occurred really drove me to move on to the next chapter when I’d resolved to put the book down at the end of the chapter previous.

Several in our club complained that they thought the end was overlong. The battle was the climax and that climax was delivered with a wonderful twist. But we followed Ender through his shock and recovery, discovery and analysis of the political situation on Earth, his departure to the Bugger world, and his pursuit of a new home for the race he thought he’d destroyed.

Perhaps Card took a few too many pages to get there, but he successfully resolves the moral conflict inside Ender. From the start, Ender loathed violence, but thrived in warfare strategy. His reaction to having wiped out an entire race is plausible. But to have left it there with the end of the battle would have made for an unfullfilling reading experience.

Ender Wiggin was an incredibly complex – probably too complex – character to leave us without some reflection on his part and some active resolution to deal with it. I thought Card pulled it off wonderfully.

Ender’s Game is one of the most respected science fiction novels ever written. It won both the 1985 Nebula Award and the 1986 Hugo Award – the two most prestigious awards in science fiction. Card would go on to write several successful sequels.

I have read very little modern science fiction, preferring to read the Golden Age material when life on Mars seemed to be a probability. I have always dismissed modern science fiction as too wrapped up in science and technology to be interesting to someone who just enjoys a good story. However, Orson Scott Card’s wonderful novel is making me rethink my prejudice against contemporary sci-fi.

An Honest President: The Life and Presidencies of Grover Cleveland

An Honest President: The Life and Presidencies of Grover Cleveland
By H. Paul Jeffers
Copyright 2000

Most would call Grover Cleveland one of the obscure presidents. Most moderately educated people can name him as the one president that served two, non-consecutive terms. Students of history know that he was the first president to admit have possibly fathered a child out of wedlock. Very few know anything about his policies or the times over which he presided.

Jeffers’ biography sketches out much of this, but provides no detailed analysis of Cleveland’s thinking, his interaction with his cabinet, members of Congress, or his political contemporaries.

Stephen Grover Cleveland was born to a family headed by a Presbyterian minister, the fifth of nine children. Grover Cleveland is a direct descendant of Moses Cleaveland, founder of the Mistake by the Lake.

His education was limited by the need to work to help support the Cleveland family who struggled with the burden of so many mouths to feed. He was always large for his age and his childhood friends called him “Big Steve.” Friends recall that he was not a great conversationalist, rather introverted, and enjoyed being outdoors.

When his father died in 1853, he had to forego his education to help support his large family. He worked briefly for his brother, William, who as the headmaster of a school for the blind in New York City. He left there, headed for Cleveland. But, during a stopover in Buffalo, he visited with his uncle that offered him a clerkship in a law office and the promise of the opportunity to “read” law as law study was called in those days.

Jeffers describes Cleveland as the “happy bachelor” while living in Buffalo. He formed no strong attachments to any particular women, although he never wanted for female companionship. Strong, robust, and attractive when he arrived in Buffalo, he slowly developed into a portly, rotund bear of a man. Still, the fairer sex found him good companionship and he courted a number of ladies, but none seriously.

One lady he did court with some degree of seriousness was the one who would give him trouble for years to come. Maria Crofts Halpen, a widow with two children who worked in a dry goods store. When Maria became pregnant, she declared Cleveland to be the father, naming the child Oscar Folsom Cleveland. Other men in Maria’s life were candidates for father, but they were married. Cleveland, being the bachelor, seemed to be the best pick for Maria. Science did not allow for paternity testing then, so Cleveland assumed responsibility for the child. It was not a light burden, for Maria had mental problems – alcoholism not being the least of them. She was in and out of asylums. Meanwhile, Cleveland saw to the financial support of the child even though he never sought out a relationship with him, perhaps feeling that the unbalanced Maria was trying to trap him into marriage.

His status in the legal community rose, first through his work with his private law firm, then as a district attorney. While serving as district attorney, he committed another act for which he’d have to answer when he ran for public office. On the eve of an era when Civil War heroes were prime political candidates, Cleveland paid someone to serve in his place. Later, his opponents would always use this to contrast him to heroes like Grant, Hayes, Garfield, and McKinley and find him wanting.

He excelled as a district attorney. Here, Jeffers gives us some insight into Cleveland’s character. Cleveland was a man with the physical and mental stamina, in the vernacular of our day, to play hard and work hard. While he was never one for physical exertion (fishing being his primary form of recreation), he did enjoy time in Buffalo taverns with friends and cronies. Yet, he had no difficulty working through the wee hours of the morning preparing cases.

When Buffalo Democrats needed a candidate for sheriff, it was Big Steve they asked to run. It was during his short tenure as Sheriff of Erie County that he earned his reputation for earnest honesty. Erie County and Buffalo were open to graft and corruption as much as any city in the United States. Yet Cleveland, who never set out to clean up the city, did run the jail and the sheriff’s office free of corruption and graft. He did not pursue corruption within his department with the zeal of Teddy Roosevelt when he was New York City police commissioner, but did not tolerate it when he saw it. This put him far ahead of most New York politicians of his era.

He completed on term as Erie County Sheriff and decided to go into private practice to make some money. His reputation and hard work with his new law firm propelled him to the upper echelons of the Buffalo legal community and the minority Erie County Democratic party. When the time came for Erie County Democrats to take on the Republican establishment in the mayoral election, it was Grover (as he called himself now) they turned to.

I found it a bit disappointing that when marking Cleveland’s name change, Jeffers never gives us a reason for the man, having established a name for himself, changing it.

Whether he be monikered Steve or Grover, Cleveland’s reputation carried him into the mayor’s office in Buffalo. Jeffers offers us few details on Cleveland’s works as mayor. Jeffers does describe how Cleveland took on the machines of both parties in the city council and followed his normal course of fighting the corruption before him, but never seeking and destroying it.

His reputation for honesty and hard work moved beyond Erie County and soon the Democrats, were considering him as a candidate for governor. Halfway through his first term as Buffalo’s mayor, he was elected New York Governor.

Jeffers gives us more substance and detail in chronicling Cleveland’s term as Governor. He quickly came to respect the Republican minority leader in the New York House, Teddy Roosevelt, who was just in his mid twenties and getting underway with his political career. He fought members of his own party as well as the Republicans in operating and maintaining an honest government. While he led no great initiatives while leading the state, he did maintain a strong and efficient government.

His stellar reputation as head of the nation’s most populous state made him a natural contender for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. The 1884 Democratic convention that nominated Cleveland was an interesting one with so many issues and old regional conflicts dividing the party. Jeffers provides few details and scant narrative of the events of the convention.

The campaign of 1884 was perhaps the most bitter and hard fought since John Quincy Adams defeated Andrew Jackson. Mudslinging dominated the campaign. Cleveland’s forces renewed old charges of Republican nominee James Blaine’s corruption on behalf of railroad interests. Having been called before Congress and eventually cleared of corruption, the old allegations stuck. Also resurrected was an old campaign ditty from Blaine’s run at the 1876 Republican nomination, invented by the forces of Rutherford B. Hayes, that went, “Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, the continental liar from the state of Maine.”

Republicans, hoping to strike at Cleveland’s high moral standing, put it out that Cleveland had sired a child out of wedlock. Republicans drafted a little jingle of their own that went, “Ma, ma, where’s my pa? Down in Washington, ha ha ha.”

Despite the fact that the child bore the last name of his law partner, Cleveland had seen to the child’s well being through his entire life. Voters seem to take this into account as well as Blaine’s less than stellar character. Of particular importance to Cleveland’s election was a group of dissident Republicans known as Mugwumps. Mugwumps were reform minded Republicans who rejected corruption and made civil service reform their primary goal. Seeing Cleveland as the candidate most likely to help them achieve these goals, they helped elect him. Jeffers acknowledges this, but lays little groundwork for the acknowledgment, providing no background on the development of the Mugwump movement.

Cleveland was handily elected president over James Blaine in 1884. Jeffers does a nice job in describing the transition of power, something we Americans take great pride in. Cleveland received a warm greeting from outgoing president, Chester Arthur. The met the evening prior to the inauguration and discussed the transition and enjoyed each other’s company. The next day, Arthur accompanied the president-elect to the Capitol for his inauguration.

Cleveland immediately found himself besieged by job seekers. Arthur had signed into law in 1883 the Pendleton Act which was the first step toward civil service reform and keeping qualified people in government positions without the fear of political reprisal. However, civil service at that time only covered 10 percent of the federal workforce.

Cleveland announced that he would not deliberately remove Republican office holders who were otherwise doing their jobs in a competent manner. Jeffers points to this as another example of Cleveland’s unabashed hatred of political corruption and the spoils system. Other historians, with whom I agree, see this as a sly political move on Cleveland’s part to keep New York’s Tammany Hall at bay. Too many New York Democrats owed too many favors to Tammany. Tammany would be able to place too many people too close to him for Cleveland’s liking.

Most of Jeffers’ chronicling of Cleveland’s first presidency discusses how he dealt with the silver coinage issue, which was the prominent issue of the day. Jeffers narrative and analysis of Cleveland’s response to this issue are well crafted. However, he provides no background nor explains why this rose to be such an important issue in the 1870s and 1880s. Cleveland stood with the more conservative Democrats who favored the gold standard or at least minimal bimetalism. He actively pursued a policy of reduced silver coinage, earning him the scorn of western Democrats, but winning him some Republican allies in Congress. This issue was fought to a stalemate and just as the issue of slavery did, it lied waiting to be fought another day.

The issues that dominated Cleveland’s first presidency demonstrate that the mid 1880s were a peaceful and prosperous time in our nation. No great wars needed to be fought. No great foreign crisis confronted us and no enemy threatened our borders. Industrialization had passed from infancy and was now moving forward at a rapid pace. Cleveland fought with Congress over such issues as tariff reform, silver coinage, and the “Indian problem” of resettling the remainder of the nation’s Indian population onto reservations. Times were tranquil.

With so few crises confronting him, it’s no wonder that the lifelong bachelor finally took the time to seek out a wife. Washington wags thought that Cleveland was pursuing his old law partner’s widow, Emma Folsom. However, most were surprised when it was revealed to Washington society that Cleveland would wed Folsom’s daughter, Frances, who was just 20 at the time of the announcement.

Although the lives of the Folsom’s and the Cleveland’s was closely interwoven for decades, Jeffers provides little information on the Folsoms and Cleveland’s interpersonal relationship with his law partner and his widow and daughter whom Cleveland took care of as legal wards. The marriage of Grover Cleveland to Frances Folsom is one of the most interesting of all presidential marriages, but Jeffers tells us little of the courtship or Cleveland’s relationship with his young wife.

We learn that Frances was well educated, charming, and dutiful. She carried out her duties as a social hostess with great aplomb, charming guests with her wit. When it was announced that she was with child, Washington society was delighted and waited with bated breath for the child’s arrival.

Ruth Cleveland was born on October 3, 1891. It is a popular misconception that the Baby Ruth candy bar was named for the infant Ruth. However, the timeline of the candy bar’s name and Ruth Cleveland’s birth make this unlikely. She was born in 1891. The Baby Ruth Bar was named in 1921 (having been named “Kandy Kake” prior to that). The name change marks the time that young Babe Ruth was making himself into a legend as a baseball player.

When Cleveland ran in 1888, the tariff reform issue was at the fore. Republicans wanted high tariffs to protect American industries. Democrats wanted lower tariffs to reduce the costs of imports and to create foreign markets for American goods. While this same debate of protectionism versus free trade goes on today, one must keep in mind that the tariff was the primary source of revenue for the federal government in the 19th century. Therefore, the issue was large.

As was the style of the day, Cleveland campaigned little. His vice presidential nominee, Allen G. Thurman of Ohio, was in ill health and did little to help the campaign. Meanwhile the forces of Benjamin Harrison of Indiana were deftly raising their candidate’s fortunes in important swing states. On election day, Cleveland would carry the popular vote. However, strategic targeting of swing states had swung the Electoral College to Harrison.

Cleveland’s four years in exile were unremarkable. He returned to Buffalo law practice, but did not work hard at it, lending his name and occasional court appearances to raise the status of his law firm and to make money. He spent a great deal of his time in leisure. Already overweight, he packed on more pounds as he lounged about. However, his mind was never far from political events of the day.

In 1892, Democrats came to court Cleveland for another run at the presidency and Cleveland was eager to go at it. The 1892 campaign was quiet and docile. Cleveland was not an energetic man and Harrison was tending to a dying wife. Just as he had in 1884, Cleveland relied on disaffected Republicans to propel him into the White House. This time, instead of bolting for Cleveland, reform minded Republicans went with the Populist Party which promised easy money in the coinage of silver and labor reforms. Cleveland prepared to return to Washington.

Unfortunately for Cleveland, Harrison dealt him a hand very much like Calvin Coolidge dealt Herbert Hoover. Just as Cleveland assumed the presidency for the second time in 1893, a major economic upheaval hit the American economy. The Panic of 1893 devastated the nation’s economy and inflicted misery across the country the likes of which had never been seen.

Again, Jeffers provides no illustration of what brought about the panic. Just as most panics start, this one was triggered by an economic bubble. In this case, it was railroads. The nation’s railroad barons, in a headlong drive to enrich themselves and their investors, expanded too rapidly and were undercapitalized. They started failing which caused their investor banks and investment houses to fail. This touched off bank runs and more failures.

The crisis hit the government as well. There was a run on the nation’s gold reserves, forcing the president to go on bended knee before financier J.P. Morgan and ask him to shore up the nation’s gold reserves.

The crisis was met in a bipartisan fashion. Silver coinage was repealed to stabilize the currency. This long term fix caused short term agony as the amount of currency dropped. Cleveland pursued tariff reform and also enacted the nation’s first income tax on all income above $4,000.

It was during Cleveland’s second administration that the first march on Washington occurred. Ohio Civil War veteran Jacob Coxey started agitating for a public works program for Civil War veterans and all workingmen. He set out from Massillon, OH with 100 men and grew his army as he proceeded toward the capital. When he arrived, he and his men were arrested for walking on the grass of the capital. After a brief detention, they were set free and disbanded. But the spontaneous rise of Coxey’s Army demonstrated the depth of the pain felt by the working class as the Panic of 1893 stretched into 1894 and beyond.

Cleveland’s second presidency was eventful on a personal level as well. His second child, daughter Esther was born in the White House. She was and is the only child born in the Executive Mansion. He also had cancer surgery. A prodigious cigar smoker, Cleveland developed throat cancer. Surgery was necessary to remove it. Cleveland decided to keep the matter private as to not create more fear in the country. He boarded a private yacht and it set sail on the Potomac. Cleveland had a portion of his hard pallet removed in the cabin of a yacht.

Unlike his first term, Cleveland was forced to deal with foreign crises. He fought American imperialists who had facilitated the overthrow of a popular queen and established a Republican government on the island chain with the hopes of American annexation. His deft handling of the Hawaii issue kept the native population from being hostile to American interests while maintaining a stable enough government within the independent Republic to assure American shipping interests continued unfettered.

The ongoing financial crisis made Cleveland exceptionally unpopular with voters and within his own party. He decided not to run in 1896, citing George Washington’s precedent of not seeking more than two terms. However, he was struck dumb when his party completely repudiated the platform upon which the Democrats had run for decades and embraced William Jennings Bryan and his silver coinage issue. He split with his party entirely and supported a pro gold Democratic ticket. Republican William McKinley would go on to defeat the bombastic Bryan.

Jeffers best writing comes in chronicling Cleveland’s post presidential pursuits. The striking resemblance between Cleveland’s post presidential career and those of Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter cannot be overlooked.

All three left office exceptionally unpopular. All three were still relatively young and in good health. They’d each held the highest office in the land. All three deemed commercial pursuits on their behalf to be degrading to the presidency. All three were at a loss as to what to do with themselves in their post White House years.

All three took to writing.

Nixon and Carter both wrote memoirs. Cleveland did not. He did write for the leading publications of the day, offering his opinions on political matters of the time. He served as a trustee a on the board of Princeton University. He worked with government leaders at all levels to improve the effectiveness of government.

He also got to spend more time with his family. This is always a blessing to presidents with young children. However, even while serving as president, Cleveland made a priority of spending time with his family. They did not even reside in the White House for the largest part of Cleveland’s presidencies, instead choosing to rent homes in Washington.

His heart broke when his daughter Ruth died at the age of 12. But he would go on to father three more children.

Years of overeating and living a life of leisure took a toll on Cleveland’s health. His weight dropped and rose with regularity. He continued to smoke. Finally, the bad life habits caught up with him and he had a heart attack. Cleveland died at the age of 70 on June 24, 1908. As had Nixon, Carter, and Harry Truman, Cleveland’s stature in the eyes of his countrymen had risen greatly in his post presidential years. Cleveland, who morosely regarded himself as the most unpopular man in America at the end of his presidency, was hailed as a great man by the great men of his times.

As I’ve noted in several sections, Jeffers book falls woefully short on providing requisite information to put into context the behavior of Grover Cleveland. While historians know of the events that Jeffers fails to describe, students reading this book will find themselves baffled by the narrative, or they will have to do further research. That is the chief failing of this book and why I rank it among the weakest presidential biographies I’ve ever read.

History has been kind to Grover Cleveland – perhaps kinder than it should. He ranks in the top half of all American presidents according to the Schlesinger poll. However, there’s nothing about his presidencies that can be called successes. His first term would be best termed as an average man serving in uneventful times. His second term would best be described as an abysmal failure since he failed to meet the country’s financial crisis and was utterly rejected by his own party.

Although Jeffers’ title would lead one to believe that he is going to lay out a case the Cleveland was a great man and a great president, he fails to make it. He leads the reader to no conclusions and compounds the error by not providing his reader with enough information to reach their own conclusions.