Eighteen Acres (2010) by Nicole Wallace

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Eighteen Acres (2010)

by Nicole Wallace

The White House, Washington DC

Washington DC: 8/12

   Nicole Wallace grew up in the next suburb over from me in Northern California and she went on to serve as Press Secretary under George W. Bush before working on the McCain/Palin Presidential Campaign, where she was singled out as being responsible for the Sarah Palin fiasco.   Her professional experience is what Wallace brings to Eighteen Acres a "you are there" novel about the first female (Republican) President, her husband, his affair with a television journalist  and the author-based press secretary who has to deal with all of it. 

  I'm not sure if this was intentional on the part of  1,001 Novels editor Susan Straight, but I couldn't stop laughing over this book set at the exact point in time when the Blackberry was THE communication medium for high ranking public officials.  The protagonists' Blackberry is mentioned at least 30 times over the three hundred pages of the book.  I loved my Blackberry and remember the era fondly.

  Aside from the constant Blackberry references there was amusement to be found in the pre-Trump Republican party, which now seems like a distant fantasy compared to our polarized present.  It's almost hard to fathom how angry pre-Trump Republicans like George W. Bush and John McCain made people- they seem like genuinely nice people after a decade of Trump and his operation.