Friday, May 8, 2009

A Time to Run

A Time to Run
Barbara Boxer and Mary-Rose Hayes
Chronicle Books-2005

I love living in California…and Barbara Boxer is one of the big reasons why.

Not only is the esteemed Senator from California a woman I respect and admire, but now she’s an author too! I’ve loved a lot of the work Senator Boxer has done for my state, (as well as Senator Feinstein-note how California has TWO female US Senators people). It is this experience that Sen. Boxer has drawn on to bring us her first, fictional work, A Time to Run, the story of a first time, junior Senator from California, her improbable rise to such a powerful office, and the crucial juncture she stands at as she is faced with key evidence regarding the current nominee for the Supreme Court.

Ellen Fischer is placed in a predicament. She is the foremost voice for the liberal wing of the Democratic Party and is not happy with the Presidents current choice for the Supreme Court, a highly Conservative law professor by the name of Frieda Hernandez. On principle Fischer knows she should lead the challenge against the nominee, but knows that in the next week she has the bill that is near and dear to her heart coming up for a vote. Having run on platform trying to create legislation that protects children against abuse, and to create a system that better ensures childhood welfare and stability, she knows that any rabble rousing on her part against the President’s choice could nix the bill. But she is not happy with Hernandez, knowing that is she gets onto the bench could cause all sorts of harm to the liberal cause.

As luck would have it, an old friend of Fischer’s stops by. Greg Hunter is a star reporter, and is in the pocket of Fischer’s political nemesis, a Cheney-esque Republican politico by the name of Carl Satcher. Ellen Fischer had beat out Satcher for her seat, and there was no love lost between the two, nor between herself and the man who had been a very close friend of both Fisher and her late husband, Josh. But Hunter is contrite, he comes bearing gifts, he has apparently found, in his investigations, evidence that Frieda Hernandez abused her daughter Flora as a child. Knowing this cuts at the heart of Ellen Fischer, he passes the information to her, asking that she keep his name out of it, and do with the information what she will.

Fischer is left with the decision…should she bring this information out to light in the floor debate the next day, or should she look into the charges further? Time is running short, and she has to do something before the call for a full Senate confirmation vote the next day.

From here the story focus shifts from that of a political debate to the story of just how Ellen Fischer, her late husband Josh, and Greg Hunter all know each other. The story is less about what Fischer will do with the information and much more how she and Greg Hunter got to this point. Ellen Downey we discover was once a bright-eyed Berkeley student, a displaced kid from Long Island, who befriends the two big men on campus, Josh Fischer, a thoughtful and passionate young up-and-coming lawyer and politician, and Greg Hunter, a handsome journalism student who has his eyes set on becoming something bigger and better than his family’s blue collar roots in Ohio. Ellen is drawn to both men, Greg who is the wounded soul who finds comfort in Ellen’s easy honesty, and Josh, the son of Holocaust survivors, who wants desperately to right the type of wrongs that entrapped and killed much of his own family. Ellen herself is a bit of the bleeding heart, she becomes involved with a group called the Children’s Alliance, a mentor group for the young, hardscrabble kids of Oakland, trying to teach them how to read, and to give them something more to do in their life than just run the streets with gangs.

Despite having an idyllic few months in 1974 before graduation, the threesome does eventually break up after graduation. Though she has a one-night stand with Greg, Ellen’s heart belongs with Josh, while Greg takes a job in small town papers in the Midwest. Josh becomes a defense lawyer, under the guiding wing of Congresswoman Lester from Oakland, who is grooming him to be her successor. When Ellen discovers she can’t have children, she throws herself into her passion of mentoring and saving the children of Oakland. After eight years, the three find themselves brought together again, when Greg returns to San Francisco to take a job at the Chronicle. It is there that he reunites with a college flame, Jane, and her rich father, who has connections with the very powerful Senator Carl Satcher. Despite their friendship, Ellen, Josh, and Greg all find that the choices they make in these years, and the places they decide to keep their loyalties have serious repercussions in the future to come, decisions that ultimately would cost Josh his life, Greg his career and family, and would put Ellen into the Senate seat that she now holds…the one that could have such heavy consequences for Frieda Hernandez.

Despite being advertised as being as catchy as The West Wing, (one of my three favorite shows of all time), A Time to Run, while being interesting and fun, is hardly as snappy, hard-hitting, or thoughtful as Aaron Sorkin’s political drama. While it certainly has a lot of political backstabbing running amuck through it, I had the feeling of it being a tad too Pollyanna-ish, as if Ellen Fischer somehow stood above the fray of the dirt of Washington politics. Perhaps I’ve been watching too much The X-files, (the first of my three favorite shows of all time), and I’m a bit cynical when it comes to backroom deals, or maybe Dick Cheney and Karl Rove have just left a bitter taste in my mouth, but I sort of felt that there wasn’t enough bite to the really dirty things going on there. I wanted to really hate Greg Hunter for being the spineless shit that he was, instead I felt a bit sad for the guy. Sure, he’s a pathetic sack of crap, but he had some real reasons why he’s a pathetic sack of crap.

And perhaps there’s a lesson there about how I shouldn’t hate the Bush/Cheney era politicians because they were humans too…but I’m not listening if there is that lesson.

I did find Ellen Fischer endearing, much as I find Senator Boxer, a person who in real life I think I’d get along with a lot. Red headed, loves to sing, is passionate about helping kids; she and I could be friends. And that is what keeps the book engaging, even when the plot sort of runs a bit mushy on you. Ellen Fischer is an endearing person, and you cheer for her when she helps kids as desperate as Derelle, one of her aids who Fischer helps as to get off the streets as a girl. You want to see more of these types of people in real life, and I liked her desperately. She made me want to go up to Oakland and start mentoring kids, (which isn’t half a bad idea for me).

The rest of the supporting cast, (save for Derelle, who I adored as well), sort of falls a bit flat, Greg and Josh in particular seem to run into this problem. Josh you want to like because he is the love of Ellen’s life, despite his faults. But Boxer never allows us to really see Josh as himself; rather we see much of Josh through Ellen’s eyes. Those rare times we do see Josh as himself, he feels so strikingly unrealistic, and he’s almost too good to be true. He is slightly insecure, but painfully noble, yet with his one big mistake that could damage everything, he is almost a cookie cutout of a political Greek tragedy waiting to happen. I wanted to like Josh, but he felt he was just too hard to hold on to as a character.

Greg also felt flat to me, a man who sort of dug his own grave, and rather than being truly a slimy git came off as being a sad, pathetic jerk who was so screwed up he should have been on meds. Greg is no Danny Conchanon from The West Wing, the man torn in his loyalties, wanting to tell the truth to the people, but is desperately in love with the Press Secretary, CJ. And you almost feel that Greg sort of wants to be that way. Rather he’s a selfish prat who always sort of wanted what Ellen offered, but was too much of a self-centered jerk to do it right, and instead chose a different path and screw anyone who came in his way, including the people he loved most. And he never, ever once sees it that way. He always only thinks of himself. I’d have rather hated the guy for being a jerk playing political hardball, than a pathetic sack of crap that just couldn’t keep from screwing up his life.

And maybe that is the point of the book. Rather than being a political thriller, A Time to Run is more a character study in how three people’s lives lead up to this moment. I recognize that not everything in Washington is going to have the high-impact drama of a Hollywood film, or even a television show. Often the backroom deals and evil power plays are situations just like these, with real people having to deal with real issues. Despite this, Senator Boxer’s book seemed to be just a bit too light and fluffy when it came down to it.

Not that this affects her in my eyes politically. I plan to keep voting for this woman until she stops running for office! And this was her first book out, and as far as first books go, it’s not so bad. Hopefully there will be others from our esteemed Senator, especially about Ellen Fischer. If I felt the novel was lacking oomph, I found Ellen to still be as engaging and endearing a person as I find the good Senator herself.

Rate this wormy book: I rate this with a FAT worm. It’s not a high-stakes political thriller, but it is an entertaining read. I highly recommend it to anyone who is considering becoming a commie community organizer, like myself!

No comments: