Trudy Hopedale

Pettiness, backstabbing, social striving and tit-for-tat favors are “the gasoline in this town”—Washington, D.C.—in the third fast-paced, entertaining Beltway sendup from New Yorker editor Frank (following The Columnist and Bad Publicity). As the Clintons make way for the Bushes in 2000–2001, the novel follows Trudy Hopedale, television host of a certain age and D.C. social mainstay, who is fast fading into political and social obsolescence. Trudy’s husband, Roger, is a retired career Foreign Service man with a shady past who is working on an embarrassing novel, while “handsome and brilliant” vice-presidential biographer Donald Frizzé is suffering from writer’s block. As the gelling Bush administration creates shifting power dynamics and loyalties, readers must read between the lines to gather information from these three very different unreliable narrators, each with secrets and ulterior motives of his or her own. Supporting cast members are one-dimensional, and Trudy can seem too petty even for satire, but Frank’s lively writing and sharp eye for the story’s fourth major character, the “soiled town” that is political Washington, carry the day. (July)