Washington Post Book Reviews
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Friday October 1, 2010
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BODY WORK
Sara Paretsky
Putnam
ISBN 978 0 399 15674 8
443 pages
$26.95
Reviewed by Kathy Blumenstock, a writer and blogger in Washington, D.C.
A Chicago nightspot featuring nude performance art is hardly V.I. Warshawski's top choice for entertainment. The feisty private detective, who has figured in 14 previous mysteries by Sara Paretsky, would likely prefer watching a Cubs game, sipping Johnnie Walker with old friends or taking a lakeside run with her dogs. But as "Body Work" opens, V.I. -- Vic to her pals -- is at Club Gouge to keep an eye on her impulsive young cousin Petra, who's waitressing there for the awesome tips paid by those eager to glimpse the mysterious Body Artist.
Attired only in makeup, the Artist invites clubgoers to paint on her naked expanse, while Web cameras broadcast every brushstroke. One volunteer, Nadia Guaman, draws intricate pink-and-gray scrollwork topped by a female face, a design that prompts an enraged response from Chad Vishneski, an Iraqi war veteran in the audience. When V.I. overhears Chad and Nadia shouting, each accusing the other of spying, she wonders who, if anyone, is really a spy and what they're trying to find out. And when Nadia is shot and killed after leaving Club Gouge, V.I. is drawn into a case as enigmatic as the Body Artist herself.
As in other V.I. Warshawski stories, crime-solving mingles with social issues. Last year "Hardball" recalled the racial tensions of the 1960s, and earlier books have explored political favors ("Burn Marks"), medical malpractice ("Bitter Medicine"), and the plights of the elderly ("Guardian Angel") and of immigrant families ("Fire Sale"). In "Body Work," Paretsky shows how the war in Iraq has affected those who've seen it up close, as well as those who've endured its losses back home.
The prime suspect in Nadia's murder is Chad, whose apparent suicide attempt doesn't prevent the police from arresting him. His parents hire V.I. to clear his name, certain that their son, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, is innocent. The investigation twists back to Club Gouge and the Body Artist. Why is the club's muscleman using her as a message board, painting numbers and letters positioned for the Web cameras? And what was Nadia drawing on her? While V.I. hunts for a link between the dead woman and the accused veteran, the Body Artist vanishes, taking her answers with her.
V.I. may favor golden retrievers, but her terrier-like persistence keeps digging up details. She learns the horrific reason behind Nadia's artwork and uncovers Chad's disturbing discovery about the war. Her usual posse provides both support and frustration, and Chad's fellow vets, who address V.I. as "ma'am," add their own expertise and perspective.
Since her 1982 arrival on the mystery scene, V.I. has aged and adapted. No more Olivetti typewriter for reports: She now deciphers texts, syncs her cell phone and laptop to aggregate photos, and plugs background searches into websites. But her signature physical toughness hasn't faltered, despite shootings, beatings and enough concussions for a discount on MRIs. Now facing 50, V.I. is still quick with her fists, and she proudly describes herself as a street-fighter. That she is, readily taking on thugs from Club Gouge as she collects bruises and clues.
Her protective instincts remain steady, too, whether she's taking in Nadia's injured sister or riding herd on her own impetuous cousin. That highly responsible nature stems from her upbringing: "Growing up the way I did," V.I. says, "my mother dying when I was in high school, my father forced to turn the house and meals over to me, I felt as though I'd been born old. ... I wondered for a moment if my whole detective practice was built on my private history of being an adolescent caretaker."
Don't expect V.I. to change careers, though. Her skill set is just the right fit for a one-woman detective agency, cracking complex cases, and taking us along for the action.
Copyright 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
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WHITE HOUSE DIARY
Jimmy Carter
Farrar Straus Giroux
ISBN 978-0374280994
570 pages
$30
Reviewed by Jonathan Yardley
Precisely whom we must thank for this sudden outpouring of books by and about Jimmy Carter -- in addition to the two here under review, there is also "Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter: The Georgia Years 1924-1974," by E. Stanly Godbold Jr. (Oxford Univ., $29.95) -- but an outpouring it most certainly is, though how many readers actually will welcome it is uncertain. This is because the principal effect of Carter's diary of his four White House years and Julian E. Zelizer's brief assessment of them is to remind us that it was a difficult time for the country and that Carter, for all his strengths, was not the right man for the time.
It has been three decades since American voters decided, by a thumping margin, that they'd rather take their chances with Ronald Reagan than give another term to Carter, and during those years Carter has done much to refurbish his reputation. Inspired by what appears to be a combination of genuine altruism and calculated public relations, at the age of 85 he has transformed himself into one of the world's elder statesmen, won widespread respect for his efforts on behalf of various certifiably worthy causes, and been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. Perhaps it is for these three decades, not for his four years in the presidency, that history will remember him. He and his admirers can only hope so.
Little of the blame for what happened between Carter's inauguration in 1977 and his involuntary return to Georgia in January 1981 can be laid directly at his feet. Much of any president's time is spent reacting to events caused by others rather than initiating ones on his own -- viz., the first two years of the Obama Administration -- and Carter was no exception. Though he did establish the Department of Energy, push through ratification of the treaties turning over the Panama Canal to Panama, and preside over the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel, he was bedeviled over and over again by such matters as the effects at home (gas lines, inflation) of the OPEC decision to raise oil prices, the taking of American hostages in Iran, and the predictable run of scandals and contretemps among his appointees and associates.
Zelizer, who teaches at Princeton and seems to publish almost as often as his fellow Princetonian Joyce Carol Oates, acknowledges in this latest volume in "The American Presidents" series of mini-biographies that Carter suffers under a reputation as "incompetent, weak, and unable to lead" while in the White House, but says in rebuttal that he "was an exceptionally smart man" who "was unafraid to innovate, willing to take risks by experimenting with new policy ideas and challenging the orthodoxies of both political parties." This is true, as is also Zelizer's argument that Carter's training "as an engineer helped to shape (his) approach to tackling issues." He "developed a technical and managerial, as well as a nonideological, mindset to problem solving that would inform him throughout his career."
But as the presidency of Herbert Hoover nearly a half-century earlier had demonstrated, the engineer's "mindset" is not necessarily ideally suited to the challenges the presidency poses. Carter was exceptionally skilled at analyzing issues and proposing solutions, as his essential role in the Camp David negotiations made clear, but his overweening confidence in his own brilliance and rectitude made him impatient with those he considered his inferiors -- i.e., just about all of us -- and did nothing to improve his relations with Congress. In an afterword to his diaries, he admits that "sometimes I was not adequately concerned with how my proposals affected the views of the voters on whom (Congress) relied for reelection" and that "a somewhat less rigid approach to these sensitive issues could have paid rich dividends."
The key word there is "rigid." As Zelizer puts it, "Through most of his presidency, Carter was unable to nurture strong relations with congressional Democrats or core Democratic constituencies, as too often he was unwilling to engage in the kind of deal making and compromises that were expected from the White House." Stubborn and willful, he was more comfortable being holier than thou than with the back-slapping and horse-trading that are so important in executive-legislative relationships. The irony is that he occupied the White House at a time when bipartisanship was still in flower, and he was able to work closely with congressional Republicans, especially the Senate minority leader -- "I met with Howard Baker, which is always a pleasant experience and constructive," he says in one diary entry -- yet he couldn't work with his own party. Early in 1978 he told his diary, "I feel more at home with the conservative Democratic and Republican members of Congress than I do the others, although the liberals vote with me more often." Mostly, though, they did so holding their noses, and as Edward Kennedy began to move toward his unsuccessful campaign for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination, the split between Carter and the left wing of his party became so wide, and feelings so acrimonious, that his presidency effectively fell apart.
He had run in 1976 as an outsider, capitalizing with great skill on public reaction to Watergate and the suspicions about Washington it had engendered, but in office he proved unable to strike a balance between his maverick image and the need to work with the Washington establishment. The trouble with running against Washington is that although it may play well out there on the hustings, it ignores the reality that any successful candidate will have to deal with Washington as it is rather than as others wish it were. Carter was simply too rigid and self-righteous to accept this unfortunate reality and work with it, and he paid the price.
Still, by comparison with his relations with the news media, Carter and Congress had a four-year love-in. From one of his first diary entries on the subject ("as always, the reporters are searching for some signs of discord or disharmony, and when a slight incident does occur and is quickly resolved, it's greatly exaggerated in the news media") to one of the last ("The irresponsibility of the news media is almost nauseating"), Carter rarely rises above a self-pitying whine. As one who has spent half-a-century in newspaper work, I think I know a good deal more about the press than Carter does and some of my judgments of it are considerably harsher than his. But his endless rants in these diaries strike me as having more to do with his own psychology than with the business itself, the positive aspects of which completely escape his notice as he zeroes in on its vanity, shallowness and stupidity.
Interestingly, these are among the few moments in these stupendously dull diaries when Carter permits his emotions to rise to the surface. For the most part he is dry, mechanical, literal-minded, petulant and utterly humorless. What, exactly, are we to say about the mind and heart of a man who can write (and then choose to publish for all to read) a passage such as this: "So far I don't feel isolated from the rest of the country since I've been in the White House. Reverend James Baker from South Carolina, immediately after he talked to me, called his sister-in-law and was so excited that he died, unfortunately. I called his wife to express my regrets." That must have made her day.
Jonathan Yardley can be reached at yardleyj(at symbol)washpost.com.
Copyright 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
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