Advise and Consent is a fictional novel that studies the political animal in their natural habitat. This was THE Washington prototype (3). It centers on the United States Senate with the confirmation of nominee Robert Leffingwell, a former member of the Communist Party, which leads to much debate and controversy (4)
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Allen Drury (9/2/1918-9/2/1998) was born in Houston, Texas. He grew up in California and received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University in 1939. After working for two California papers, he joined the army. He left after a year due to an old back injury. Soon after, he relocated to Washington D.C. as a Senate correspondent. He worked for multiple newspapers and in 1954, he joined the New York Times Washington division. With this position, he focused solely on Congress and when he published Advise and Consent, he quit the NYT to become a political correspondent for Reader’s Digest. Since then, he went on to write many fiction and nonfiction books and articles. However, he is mostly known for Advise and Consent (5).
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"Of all the real-life senators serving when Allen Drury's ''Advise and Consent'' was published 50 years ago this summer, only Robert C. Byrd remains in office. At this long remove one may be tempted to see him as Drury's model for South Carolina's Seabright Cooley, whose ornate, quavering oratory was made so memorable by both the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and Charles Laughton's performance in the film that followed. But then one remembers that Byrd, only 41 in 1959, didn't grow into the part of Cooley until decades later. Drury's Senate is such a passionate, full-throttle place that ''Advise and Consent'' never has occasion to quote George Washington's famous wish that the Senate serve as a cooling saucer for legislation that boils over from the more demotic House. His mid-20th-century senators certainly speak better than those serving today, most of whom, during debate, could scarcely pronounce, let alone deploy, its orotund courtesies and barbs. Indeed, much of the ambience in which these fictional senators work and preen has vanished."
-New York Times Book Review. 6/28/2009, p23 |
"Written by a 1950s newspaper hack whose beat was Capitol Hill, Advise and Consent has got closet cases and State Department commies, confirmation bloodbaths, blackmail, and suicide, and is as gripping today as when it first appeared fifty years ago. It's the book that made other people in D. C. think they could write (they can't), so stick with Drury's classic."
-Esquire. Mar2010, Vol. 153 Issue 3, p139-139 |
THOMAS, MALLON. "'Advise And Consent' At 50." New York Times Book Review (2009): 23. Academic Search Complete. Web.
"Advise And Consent." Esquire 153.3 (2010): 139. Academic Search Complete. Web.
"Advise And Consent." Esquire 153.3 (2010): 139. Academic Search Complete. Web.
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