CBS News: From 1982 until 1985, he served as director of special projects in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. It was perhaps this post that inspired him to write “The Apprentice,” his 1996 thriller that takes place in 1903 Japan.
BREAKING NEWS ITEM: Libby, inspired by the turn of events while serving as Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff, has decided to return to novel-writing. Return of the Reluctant has obtained an early excerpt of Mr. Libby’s next novel, tentatively titled The Yesman.
Synopsis: It is the winter of 2005 and an anal retentive yesman, not above lying and obstructing justice, finds himself plunged headlong into the world of unemployment and possible prison time in this gritty new thriller from Lewis Libby.
EXCERPT:
I stood in the dole line, lusting after my ex-boss’s cherubic head. It was all I had left. The vicious scowls he gave reporters had always excited me. But I knew that my ex-boss had a lot more going on than a bum ticker. That’s why I took the bullet. That’s why I was breathing in asbestos from the cracked tiles below. It was the kind of devotion that most people don’t understand. Because corruption’s a bit like an afternoon cookie: warm, comforting yet somehow sinful if you have more than one. Me? I wanted the whole jar. Can you crucify a man for having a large appetite?
The least my boss could have done is let me kiss him: the way that LBJ was always fond of kissing Sam Rayburn’s head. And now I was here, waiting for a measly unemployment check, surrounded by smelly people who were scaring the hell out of me. My ex-boss wouldn’t write me a letter of recommendation. But then he had always rebuffed my advances. That’s why I crossed the line in the end. Now I was standing in one.
This was one of many reasons why I had started using crutches. Perhaps people would feel sorry for me. I was a victim, after all. Perhaps they’d understand that, despite my despicability, I was a wounded man. In need of a cookie. Or maybe a hug.
You work in this town long enough and you find that everyone needs a cookie in the end. And not just a harmless oatmeal one, but maybe a chocolate fudge-striped cookie loaded with additives that isn’t all that good for you.
Well, as my ex-boss always told me, sometimes you have to live a little. Sometimes you have to cross the line.
Sometimes you have to eat a lot of cookies.
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
Here is an excerpt from the book Libby will be writing from jail.
Leigh