Finale A Novel of the Reagan Years [Paperback]

ANew York TimesNotable Book
AWashington PostNotable Book
 
One of the Best Books of the Year:San Francisco Chronicle,The Daily Beast,The Miami Herald,St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Before there was Reagan the conservative icon, there was Reagan the president: genial, unknowable, faced with doubters, scandals, and the final throes of the Cold War. In this extraordinary novel, Thomas Mallon takes us to the tense, high-stakes months in 1986 when—with the Iran-Contra affair, the AIDS epidemic, and the Reykjavik summit with Gorbachev—Reagan and those around him were shaping history. We see Nancy Reagan—brooding, protective, consulting her astrologist at every turn. We see the young Christopher Hitchens—his incisive, acerbic voice lending a powerful counterpoint to events as they unfold. And we see Reagan himself: apparently warm but in fact distant and mercurial, by turns seeming to know more than he lets on and let on more than he knows. Written with impeccable language and savage wit,Finaleis historical fiction of the highest order, brilliantly rendering the human drama behind these famous—and familiar—faces.

“Sly and penetrating. . . . Mallon’s most audacious and important work yet.” —The New York Times Book Review

“[A] scintillating comic epic of politics. . . . Mallon follows his troupe across thousands of miles, capturing what happens with rapier wit.” —San Francisco Chronicle 

“A story about the limits of human ambition. . . . Wicked good, that Thomas Mallon.”—The Washington Post
 
“Finale offers a certifiable slice of the recent past but teases its readers with subtle fictionalization . . . Mallon handles it with an easy mastery.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Richly imagined. . . . Mallon offers a useful reminder tl“‰