American Adulterer: A Novel by Jed Mercurio (Jonathan Cape)
Why? Is one of the questions that pursued me throughout my reading of this so-called novel, presented in the form of a medical history, in which the protagonist is initially and later occasionally referred to as “the subject”, but is mostly given his real name and placed in the Oval Office.
Why was it written?
What? Is another question.
What was it intended to achieve? In what way are readers enriched or better informed after ploughing through its 351 pages?
Well, let’s see. They have probably learned everything they never wanted to know about John F Kennedy’s digestive problems, bowel movements, sexual incontinence and drug regime … and, oh yes, that he loved his children and his wife (despite his serial infidelities with interns, secretaries, socialites and prostitutes and, gee, wow, a certain Hollywood blonde, subtly called ‘Marilyn’) and that he was a clever politician who brought his country back from the brink of nuclear warfare (having put it there in the first place).
There are some interesting extracts from his speeches, but those are no doubt reproduced in full elsewhere so that’s no excuse for exterminating a forest to produce this grubby little work.