Memories of the Ford Administration

By John Updike

Book Overview

"Stunning...Alf's life and times are light and funny; Buchanan's are dark and serious. Alternating between the two, Mr. Updike entertains and instructs...in gorgeous prose." THE WALL STREET JOURNAL When junior college professor Alfred Clayton is asked to record his impressions of the Ford Administration, he recalls a turbulent piece of personal history as well. In a decade of sexual liberation, Clayton was facing a doomed marriage and the passionate beginnings of a futile affair with an unattainable Perfect Wife. But one memory begets another: Clayton's unfinished book on James Buchanan. In John Updike's fifteenth novel, he masterfully alternates between the two men, two lives, two American centuries--one Victorian, the other modern--shining an irreverent, witty, and sometimes caustic light on the contrasting views of social fictions and sexual politics.... A MAIN SELECTION OF THE BOOK-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679416811
• ISBN13: 9780679416814
• Release Date: October 1992
• Publisher: Knopf
• Length: 371 Pages
• Weight: 1.31 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 1.5" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Outstanding Biography of James Buchanan, 15th POTUS

I borrowed this from the library not knowing anything about the content, judging from the title that it was a retrospective of the accidental Ford Presidency. Much to my surprise, it had nothing to do with Ford, merely referring to the period in history when the book's narrator, Alfred "Alf" Clayton, wrote his Buchanan biography. The book interweaves Alf's life from 1974 to 1976 with Alf's biography of James Buchanan, which he was writing during the same time. The portions of the book dedicated to Alf's life are hilarious and typical Updike. These episodes in themselves were excellent reading. However, what makes the book great, is his treatment of Buchanan and the larger fabric of America during Buchanan's long life, and particularly during the decade preceding the Civil War. Updike paints a sympathetic portroit of Buchanan, unlike most Presdential scholars, who consistently rate him among the worst of America's Presidents. I tend to agree with Updike, as "Old Buck" was running a country that was, at the time, completely ungovernable. Trying to keep the peace, Buchanan was scorned for his efforts by the North and the South. I don't think anyone adorning Mt. Rushmore could have avoided what ensued. Updike recounts Buchanan's childhood in the wilderness of western Pennsylvania, through his romance with Anne Coleman in Lancaster and his rise as a lawyer and politician, through his election as POTUS, and it's culmination in the collapse of the Union. This was a great book and I recommend it highly.

Good News-Not Really About The Ford Administration At All!

The brilliant John Updike delivers yet again. Deceptively packaged as a sort of historical evaluation of the Presidency of Gerald Ford, this book's protagonist actually tricks us all by giving Ford virtually no ink and ultimately encapsulates his feelings for the man by calling him little more than "the perfect President." You see, though he has been assigned the task of authoring a scholarly paper on Ford, the main character here, a writer and educator from New England, combines an autobiographical tale about his own life during the hectic, sex-filled mid-1970's, with his obsessive mission to make public his views on and expertise of the Presidency of James Buchanan. The writer becomes obsessed in an almost Hitchcockian fashion with Ann, the doomed fiancée of the lawyerly young Buchanan, a woman who meets a tragic death that sends the future fifteenth President of the United States into lifelong bachelorhood and---it is speculated-either undispelled virginity, or just possibly a homosexual relationship in the White House with an Alabama Senator. The Buchanan material, while most interesting of all in its early stages, quickly takes second billing to the tale of the writer's personal life during the 1970's, as he separates from his spouse, falls in lust with a local woman he terms "The Perfect Wife" and skirt-chases after the available females on his college campus and in his neighborhood and social circle. Updike does get surprisingly graphic, even erotic, in his descriptions of sex here, and in a few cases he shifts gears masterfully, making the same scene a thing of both Eros and physical comedy. Memories Of The Ford Administration is a dyed-in-the-wool masterpiece that surely gets its time periods, the first half of the nineteenth-century and the 1970's, down pat. It's a joy to read, a book that makes a reader think, and a tale to settle back and take delight in as it unfolds without effort. Without question a five-star book!

Buchanan and U

The Updike persona is Alfred Clayton, a New Englander, schooled at Middlebury and Dartmouth. He is an historian. As the book opens he and his children are watching Nixon's resignation speech, marking the beginning of the Ford administration. He is babysitting for the children while his wife goes out with another man since the couple is separated. Alf refers to his wife Norma as the Queen of Disorder. He calls his mistress Genevieve the Perfect Wife. She is married to an English professor, a deconstructionist. The college is named hilariously by Updike Wayward College. When Alf left his family he took away his little library on James Buchanan, the subject of a book he had been trying to write for a decade. Buchanan's upbringing began in a log cabin in the middle of Pennsylvania. Buchanan's life and administration form a complement to the Ford administration. They are a sort of filigree. Buchanan and his fiancee separated over a misunderstanding. Shortly afterwards the young woman, Ann Coleman, died. As a distraction from his grief, Buchanan ran for public office. Genevieve told Alf that he had been lower than the cats in the household hierarchy. Alf describes himself as doing postgraduate work in adultery and child neglect. When Alf spends the night in his old house because his mother is visiting, he nearly has an asthma attack. The president of Wayward has a high tech west coast style of governance. She decorates herself like a year around Christmas tree with bangles and hoops. In the run-up to the Civil War Buchanan insisted upon the defense of federal forts. Genevieve's husband is offered a position at Yale and she is inclined to accompany him there. Alf returns to his family as the Ford administration ends and he and his children watch the inaugural ceremonies of Jimmy Carter. Amusingly there is a bibliography on Buchanan works.

Genius on Display

This book features Updike's astonishing talent with the felicitous phrase and the perfect observation. Here is one of hundreds from this beautifully written book: 'The coming day was yet only an unhealthy blush low in the eastward sky, a crack of sallow light beneath a great dome of darkness to which stars still clung, like specks of frozen dew, though the moon had fled.' But oddly, this genius seems to work against Updike in 'Memories.' This is because his immense talent allows him to jump from what he can render as high point to high point in the lives of Alf Clayton and John Buchanan, the protagonists of this novel's two interlocked story lines. Here, a comparison might be an acting class, where actors do only the most dramatic scenes from great plays. Somehow, Updike's brilliance in 'Memories' has this same effect on me. In retrospect, this novel is a succession of perfect aesthetic moments. But the personalities of Alf and Buchanan? Certainly, poor Alf is caught in an unhappy marriage. Meanwhile, Buchanan is a temporizer who ultimately fails to master chaos. But the book feels to me like highlights, not the full game, like snapshots instead of tapes. Of course, I'm not complaining. Updike tells us in his title that these are memories. And, I know these characters, two muddled men, will stay with me. In my opinion, a facet of Updike's genius is on full display here. It remains one exemplar for judging fiction, for all time.

Updike's Best -- According to a long-time fan.

I have read at least twenty of his novels, and seemingly hundreds of his short stories. 'Ford' is, I believe, his best, his best-represented, and yes, his most pessimistic novel to date (I haven't read the latest 'Bech' book yet). It is this book that accounts Updike's personal hatred for humanity, and will possibly leave the reader shopping for a handgun with a removeable mouthpiece. I regret that such fine writing from such a wordster's hand could be so sad, but alas, this is far from a perfect world.