The Better Angels

McCarry is good as always, providing intrigue with an incredibly prescient plot 30 years before its time.

I enjoy reading McCarry's books, especially The Last Supper. But there was no mention in The Better Angels of airplanes flying into American buildings. Stolen nukes, yes, but no air threat.

As this book is about to celebrate its 30th anniversary, many have noted the current world events which mirror the plot in the book - self-detonating terrorists, weapons of mass destruction which can't be found, a polarized politics in America - it is quite eerie and one wishes that Mr. McCarry had still been in the CIA in the 1990s, when he could used his foresight to do something about al-Qaeda. On the surface, the book tells a simple tale. The GOP and the Democrats have been replaced by two unnamed parties, one emphasizing the head and one which draws its politics from the heart. With a backdrop of terrorism, the plot covers the 1996 Presidential election between a former President, Mallory, from the party of rationalism (head) and Lockwood, the sitting President from the party of the heart. Told primarily from the viewpoint of Lockwood partisans, the book seems on the surface to tell of the defeat of the sinister Mallory by machinations organized by the FIS (which has replaced the CIA) and Lockwood's Chief of Staff. But beneath that level, one begins to question just who is right and who is the sinister one. Everytime Mallory gets to speak, one of the pillars of his fascism seems more reasonable. We hear all along that Mallory had attempted to invade Canada, but he claims that his plan to unify the US and Canada was to be based on a referendum. Who's right? Who knows? And despite everyone's veneration of Lockwood, something is not right with the Potemkin Village we see: although everyone's use of gas is strictly rationed, Lockwood takes helicopters to and from his plantation in Kentucky and New York has become a wasteland, since Lockwood pays large sums of money to street gangs who have taken over the city. In the end, the party of the heart and the FIS undermine democracy by fixing the election, whereas, four years earlier, when Mallory was defeated by what was, perhaps, biased press coverage, he gracefully left office without pulling the coup that Lockwood and the FIS do. Does this make Mallory the hero? No, it does not, but it also makes one question the bona fides of Lockwood and his regime. Ultimately, the point is that politics needs both sympathy and rationality and neither one or the other is adequate to govern the nation. The point also is that judging reality is harder to do than one thinks and depends largely where you stand. This point is made in the very last line of the book, in a conversation between a married pair of limousine liberals - easily the most obnoxious characters in the book - who have spent the book worried about being sent to a concentration camp in Alaska only to conclude that if Mallory had won, he and not Lockwood would be the guest of honor at their party. Everything McCarry writes is both more sophisticated and more readable than the standard spy tale.

It's been awhile sice I read this book, but after 9/11, I thought about how shockingly close to the actual events The Better Angels becomes. Especially note worthy is the Islamic cleric hiding in caves and the rigged election using what was then very ahead-of-its time computer technology. This book along with all of McCarry's work is excellent fiction. He writes so well, its a shame his books never became best-sellers. Very recommended.

This spy/government thriller was written in 1979 but it is frighteningly similar to what has happened since the 9/11 terrorist bombings. It has so many similarties that one has to wonder if bin Laden himself may have read this book years ago before it went out of print. Read as US government officials, spy agencies and TV news personalties grudgingly work together to solve a world terroist threat. My wife came across this book at a yard sale and I had it for the whole summer before reading it in November of 2001. I was shocked at what I was reading because of the very things the terriosts were doing in the book were the same things happening in the world today. The methods that the mastermind desert dweller bad guy Middle Eastern terrorist leader uses are very close to what we hear about today, that is, fully fueled jets used as bombs, acquiring small nuke devices, suicide bombers, cave shelters and others. There is also a presidential election with controversial results, a la Bush/Gore. It is somewhat dated and has a Cold War feel, but in 1979 that is what the reality was. An interesting read in light of todays events.