The King Is Dead - Hardcover

Lewis, Jim

3.5

124 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375414177 ISBN 13: 9780375414176

Publisher: Knopf, 2003

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A powerful novel of love, madness, murder, and redemption, of politics and justice, Jim Lewis’s The King Is Dead is the story of two men–a father and a son–whose contrasting lives reflect the dramatic shifts in the last half century of American life. It is a gripping narrative that combines the resonance of nineteenth-century fiction with the dazzling inventions of twenty-first-century storytelling: a book that brings Jim Lewis to the forefront of contemporary literature.

Walter Selby is a hero of World War II who has come home from the Pacific to a heady career in politics, as an aide to the new governor of Tennessee. In Memphis, he meets the witty and beautiful Nicole Lattimore in an enchanted encounter after a baseball game. They fall in love. They marry. They have two children and lead a charmed life among the well-to-do. Walter takes his place in American politics, experiencing up close the changes of his age. And then–when he must follow the governor’s orders to evict a homesteading black family from their land–we see his disillusionment. Walter resigns his post, only to come home to an even more devastating blow. The virtuous man snaps and commits a shocking crime.

But this is more than simply a story of crime and punishment. Now we turn to our own times–from the father to his son, Frank. Haunted by the great affair of his youth, which ended when the girl he loved lost her hold on reality, Frank has never come to terms with his own good fortune. He is a reluctant movie actor–a star, even–but finds his work increasingly unfulfilling. That is, until a mysterious director offers him an intriguing new role, and Frank sets out across the country–from New York to Tennessee to Texas, from Oklahoma City to Kansas City, and, finally, to Los Angeles–in pursuit of the true story of his family, of what has brought him to this fork in the road.

The King Is Dead is a tale of generations, of the true meaning of origins. In a novel of startling originality–compassionate, deeply affecting, gorgeously descriptive, full of the rhythms of a changing America–Jim Lewis brings the mythic compellingly to life.

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Review:

A father's shame is explored by his son in The King Is Dead, the third novel by Jim Lewis. Walter Selby, a decorated WW II veteran, becomes a speech writer and strategist for a prominent Tennessee politician; marries Nicole, a decade younger; and lives with all the trappings of the Southern upper-middle class, including two small children, Frank and Gail. A political debacle causes the fiercely moral Walter to resign, and he returns home early, only to find Nicole has been unfaithful. The second half of the novel follows Frank--who recalls little of his parents after his adoption--as a known, but declining, actor approached by a famous actress, Lenore, to star in her swan song.

Lewis displays considerable writing talent, such as when Frank explains to Lenore that he never talks about his real father, and "[s]he sounded surprised by the notion, and slightly incredulous, as if he'd told her that he'd never tasted orange juice, or that he'd once gone a year without sleeping." The novel is constructed to showcase Lewis's astute musings on love, sex, and death, but gives short shrift to the relationship between Frank and his ancestry. Instead, Frank's time is spent recalling his first love, Kimmie, and their sexual experiences (in vivid detail). While engaging characters abound, the plot of The King Is Dead becomes suppressed and merely strings them along. --Michael Ferch

From the Back Cover:

“This marvelous and beautifully written novel has at its blistered heart a love story...Lewis is extremely good on how Walter is changed by Nicole, by his adoration for her, and when their marriage ends it is awkward and passionate and shocking and moving...Some of the episodes along the way have the shape and presence of near-perfect short stories...There are lovely lines throughout. Lewis has made a world where things have their own inner lives, heavy with grief and consciousness...But it’s not just pretty writing: the book creates a powerful narrative urgency as it approaches its end...and you find you have to force yourself to read more slowly, not wanting the experience to end.”–David Flusfeder, Telegraph (UK, 8/12/03)

“A ballad of murder and mythmaking...[Lewis] is the kind of writer who can, with a straight face, end his book with the word ‘amen’ and kill of a character with the words ‘and the Angel of Death came down and took her.’ But he also possesses a dry, modern sense of irony and inconclusiveness, [as well as] intelligence and skepticism...There are books that seek to give ordinary life the status of myth, as if offering a shortcut to the immortality conferred on the straying heroines and vengeful heroes. If this novel did only that, it would be much less interesting. Its accomplishment lies in reversing the mythmaking process, freeing [its characters] from the gothic enchantments of History and restoring them to human scale.”–A. O. Scott, New York Times Book Review (8/3/03)

“Such a dramatic gesture gives us the willies, but: If you read only one work of fiction this summer, make it this eloquent meditation on the second half of the 20th century as reflected through the cracked prism of two flawed men, cause and consequence, a banished father and his rootless son, each battered by secrets, impulse and circumstance.”–Margaria Fichtner, Miami Herald (6/15/03)

“The King is Dead is a marvelous book, and with it, Jim Lewis has come into full possession of a powerful literary voice whose main qualities are the hardest to come by: integrity, empathy, narrative allure, and wisdom. Lewis’s moral intelligence purges his prose of every false move and cheap convention, burrowing ever closer to the truths about the pull and stain of heritage. This is a book of impeccable artistry, and yet it goes beyond that, becoming, in the end, like the songs of the nameless country singer who appears in its pages, songs that were ‘neither art nor amusement, nor solace, nor democratic odes: they were facts, and they would be known.’”–Jeffrey Eugenides, author of Middlesex

“In a page-turning narrative, Lewis explores the underbelly of American society–from the Tennessee Valley Authority’s eviction of poor African Americans to the failure of the U.S. military to protect its minority soldiers during the world wars. Lewis’s writing distills what is most important about the social and political realities of his age. Like the Victorian political storyteller Anthony Trollope, Lewis is more than a novelist. In The King Is Dead, he has produced an ambitious epic of ideas, one that, in many ways, captures the changes and attitudes of the 20th century.”–Lynn Hamilton, BookPage (August, 2003)

“In books about fathers and sons, men inevitably wrestle with their fear of becoming their fathers. Jim Lewis gets that. His new novel, The King Is Dead, takes the father-son conflict and deftly weaves it into a 20th-century American fable...deal[ing] with the inevitability of lineage, and legacy...With The King Is Dead, Lewis proves he can evoke intimate sadness within big stories. That’s the mark of real tragedy–and real art.”–Seth Taylor, San Diego Union Tribune (8/3/03)

“A legacy of instability and alienation plagues two generations in this [novel], Jim Lewis’s third outing...Lewis create[s] some smashing effects in his d�nouement, as Frank travels to his dying father’s bedside seeking the answer to the “riddle” that embraces father and son alike; “Where does a man go, if he’s done wrong?”...Lewis’s crisp, forthright style and arresting character portraits lead toward a most satisfying payoff.”–Kirkus

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