Every Man a King

This witty, splenetic fiction debut charts the brief rise and long fall of a Reagan-era neoconservative. From a small town in western New York, John Huey (named after Huey Long) Ketchum escapes to become an embittered underling on the staff of a revered, constantly intoxicated New York senator. Moving on to a rightist think tank, he's able to launch a promising career as a political columnist, larding his pieces with apocryphal anecdotes about his ``grandpappy'' Fred. But at the pinnacle of Huey's early success, an appearance on Face the Nation , he utters a racial slur on the air; the resulting firestorm blasts him out of politics forever and back to his hometown of Batavia. The novel's second half, in which the destroyed young man finds true love with a low-born factory worker named Wanda, lacks the sting of the Washington scenes, all of which are shot through with a seemingly inexhaustible dose of venom. How much of the novel is autobiography--Kauffman is a former Senate staffer and journalist who now lives in Batavia--is anybody's guess, but his devastating sketches of barely disguised politicos and institutions are unfailingly funny, and his portrayal of the repulsive young comer in their midst is just as harsh. (May)