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Peter Cutler is a respected Princeton professor living a quiet academic life when an old college friend makes him an offer he can't refuse: The position of foreign policy adviser for Democratic presidential candidate Wayne Kent. Cutler takes the job and eagerly jumps into the political fray. When Kent wins the election, Cutler's thrilled to find himself Under Secretary of State. But he soon discovers that the power politics of Washington are a far cry from the comforts of university life. In order to survive, he must participate in a ruthless tug-of-war in which everyone struggles to promote his own agenda. As Cutler becomes increasingly absorbed in the underhanded tactics of bureaucratic survival and the charms of an old girlfriend working in the Pentagon, his initial foreign policy goals recede into the background. Ultimately, the allure and hypocrisy of political life cause him to alienate everyone he cares aboutand to make one life-altering political miscalculation.
Joseph Nye is a Harvard academic and former US government official who held senior positions in the intelligence community in the Clinton Administration. This is his first novel and a very disppointing read, with dead language, flat characters and several large holes.Professor Nye has taken the low road when it comes to writing this book, aiming for an airport best-seller instead of a Booker prize winner. There is nothing wrong with that, except that he has produced a plot unworthy of the genre.A political scientist at Princeton University (presumably based on himself), lands a senior job in the US Department of State where he battles bureaucratic and personal rivals. He finds himself with an aptitude for power, which corrupts him personally and threatens to destroy his life.Nye offers far too few insights into Washington politics to overcome his wooden, cliched writing. It is hard to feel anything for the main character, who is not only shallow but somewhat of a loser. The sex scences have all the excitment of shopping at KMart. The dialogue is folksy, and it's hard to imagine intelligent people being so unoriginal. The finale contains a basic factual absurdity of a journalist who instantly gives up a source, who then continues to receive calls from that journalist. The fate of a key character is needlessly unresolved. It is as though Nye didn't have time to write the last chapter properly.I bought the book because it was recommended by the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, but I wonder if this was a favour from a friendly contact, like the six people quoted on the back cover, all of whom appear to have had professional relations with Nye. David Gergen, for example, is an academic at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. As the recently departed dean, Nye was his boss. To his credit however, Gergen merely describes the book instead of praising it, identifying Nye as a "budding novelist". A bud that has yet to bloom.
