By Jack Engelhard
Those of us who tuned in for a slugfest were disappointed and went back to cutting the lawn. This was no Ali versus Frazier. There were no thrills. Even Fox News abruptly turned off, literally, and returned to regular programming so that Shepard Smith could get himself excited about the Murder of the Day. Only one person gave it some spice, on Fox, and it wasn’t a senator; it was anchorwoman Megyn Kelly. I’m nuts about this lady.
Yes, I know the howls at the mention of Fox News, but come on, Roger Ailes knows how to pick the right people (except for Geraldo) and how to keep stories moving.
Obviously, ratings were taking a dive. CNN took the hint from Fox and began easing off those hearings as well. News – especially on television – needs a plot, needs a narrative, needs good guys and bad guys, needs to entertain, needs drama and this simply wasn’t good television, never mind good theater.
There’s nothing to say about Democrat questioning since those guys are already sold on Sonia Sotomayor. (Amazingly, Al Franken was best of the rest.)
But just for the fun of it, we wanted some action from the Republicans.
When a hockey game gets dull, there is always someone from the stands who yells –“Hit somebody!”
Well, nobody got hit in this panel’s deliberations on whether Sotomayor qualifies for the Supreme Court. The GOP went limp. One reason: the fix is in. They’re without numbers, these Republicans, and they’re without clout. So, except perhaps for Jeff Sessions, they gave up. The surrender began when they picked a sure loser to take on Barack Obama and so it continues.
Here in microcosm, what we saw was a Republican Party really down in the dumps. This country is operating under a one Party system. I don’t think that’s smart. This wouldn’t work even if it were all Republicans. I already said all this in a piece I wrote titled “Kremlin America,” which is about the dangers facing America when we lose the charms of checks and balances. Without that we are Russia.
Given the defeatism, despair and malaise that we saw from the GOP at these hearings, we’re in for another eight to 80 years of single Party Democrat dominance.
Anyway, I don’t think Sotomayor meant what she said about “a wise Latina woman” being more capable than white men. What she meant, I think, was that the high court ought to be a portrait of America. We’re not all men in this country, certainly not all white men, therefore we need different points of views while maintaining the spirit and the letter of the law as established by our Constitution. I’m on her side on this.
Does she really have the cajones for the Supreme Court? Well, she certainly proved herself capable under some (not much) -- but some fire. What she did was, well, she gave such longwinded and convoluted and legalistic responses to each question that she withered and wore out the competition – and us. She answered her enemies and even her friends into submission.
As for me, I did not find her sharp or brilliant and maybe that’s good. Maybe, to be a good judge, you need to be slow and deliberative. Maybe she is brilliant.
She was on her best behavior as is any person applying for a job. The real person comes later.
Yes, I said the fix is in but I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. Like the double jeopardy business, once a person has been acquitted, it’s over! In this case, once Sotomayor has been approved, she can thumb her nose at Congress. She can say, “So long, suckers.” She can say, “Oh by the way, I didn’t mean anything I said at those stupid hearings. I’m a Supreme Court Justice and you’re not.”
She can add – “I just proved, didn’t I, that a Latino woman is wiser than a roomful of white men.”
Jack Engelhard’s latest thriller, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” centers on media deceit against America and Israel and is available in paperback at Amazon. Engelhard wrote the international bestselling novel “Indecent Proposal” that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. He can be reached, and his Works can be viewed, at www.jackengelhard.com
Showing posts with label women. Show all posts
Showing posts with label women. Show all posts
Friday, July 17, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
When Fiction Becomes Fact
By Jack Engelhard
My latest paperback novel, “The Girls of Cincinnati,” is a work of fiction. It’s about a hot love affair that gets interrupted when a third party intrudes with the intent of doing damage. It’s true that I based the female lead on someone I knew, and knew warmly, in Cincinnati, back in the days of my youth. That would be Stephanie Eaton, as I have her in the novel – high-born and high-class. She is so rich and so beautiful that she feels that nothing can ever go wrong. (Life is full of surprises.)
From there, however, the resemblance ends with the real person – I made up all the rest. In fact, I made up Stephanie Eaton strictly from my imagination, though surely there are many women who can say that they are the prototype for MP (those are the initials of the girl I originally had in mind, but that I changed for the sake of fiction).
I do not know what happened to MP. Is she still in Cincinnati? (All this was so many years ago.) Is she a mother, a grandmother? Is she married? How many different men did she marry? Is she – and I hate to ask this – is she still alive? The prototype for Maishe (my dear friend Moishe, whom I also fictionalized) – turned up gone for good when I accidentally found a listing along the Web. This was a sad discovery.
All this is by way of saying that since the novel came up on Amazon I’ve been asked by several readers where the truth ends and where the fiction begins. The answer is –I don’t know. I mean, even fiction has roots in reality. Sure, I invented most of it, but Stephanie Eaton is such a strong feature in the novel that I must admit that I’ve lost my place – and some readers have even suggested that they knew the real woman that I had in mind; and they’re glad and grateful (and flattered) that I brought her “back to life,” speaking of MP.
But MP (all right, I’ll give away her first name – Melanie) was fantasy when I wrote about her as Stephanie, and she was fantasy even during our Cincinnati romance.
As every novelist knows, you may start off with a real person in mind, but then literature happens; a new person emerges straight from your subconscious.
Yes, Melanie made this novel happen. I wrote this novel before I wrote anything else and kept rewriting it over the decades, which is another reason why I can’t be sure where the truth ends and where the fiction begins. There have been quite a few revisions. As I say in the book itself, in my Note from the Author: “Over the years (decades actually) I kept polishing it, nursing it, and nourishing it, always mindful that I mustn’t tamper too much, otherwise I’d lose the innocence, the youthfulness and even the heartbreak in which it was first written.”
Heartbreak is the key word here – heartbreak for the youth and beauty that happens only once and never comes round again. We only get one chance at this.
So I don’t know where Melanie is, but I do know that Stephanie Eaton is alive, very much alive, in these pages.
Fiction is often truer than life itself and in this instance Stephanie doubles for nobody. She is a woman all her own.
If Melanie were to come back, in the flesh, she’d have to compete with Stephanie, in the book, as to which was real, which was invented.
Both, however, are equally dear to me.
Novelist Jack Engelhard is the author of the international bestseller (and later, movie) “Indecent Proposal” and “The Bathsheba Deadline.” His latest novel, “The Girls of Cincinnati,” is available exclusively on Amazon. He can be reached at his website www.jackengelhard.com
My latest paperback novel, “The Girls of Cincinnati,” is a work of fiction. It’s about a hot love affair that gets interrupted when a third party intrudes with the intent of doing damage. It’s true that I based the female lead on someone I knew, and knew warmly, in Cincinnati, back in the days of my youth. That would be Stephanie Eaton, as I have her in the novel – high-born and high-class. She is so rich and so beautiful that she feels that nothing can ever go wrong. (Life is full of surprises.)
From there, however, the resemblance ends with the real person – I made up all the rest. In fact, I made up Stephanie Eaton strictly from my imagination, though surely there are many women who can say that they are the prototype for MP (those are the initials of the girl I originally had in mind, but that I changed for the sake of fiction).
I do not know what happened to MP. Is she still in Cincinnati? (All this was so many years ago.) Is she a mother, a grandmother? Is she married? How many different men did she marry? Is she – and I hate to ask this – is she still alive? The prototype for Maishe (my dear friend Moishe, whom I also fictionalized) – turned up gone for good when I accidentally found a listing along the Web. This was a sad discovery.
All this is by way of saying that since the novel came up on Amazon I’ve been asked by several readers where the truth ends and where the fiction begins. The answer is –I don’t know. I mean, even fiction has roots in reality. Sure, I invented most of it, but Stephanie Eaton is such a strong feature in the novel that I must admit that I’ve lost my place – and some readers have even suggested that they knew the real woman that I had in mind; and they’re glad and grateful (and flattered) that I brought her “back to life,” speaking of MP.
But MP (all right, I’ll give away her first name – Melanie) was fantasy when I wrote about her as Stephanie, and she was fantasy even during our Cincinnati romance.
As every novelist knows, you may start off with a real person in mind, but then literature happens; a new person emerges straight from your subconscious.
Yes, Melanie made this novel happen. I wrote this novel before I wrote anything else and kept rewriting it over the decades, which is another reason why I can’t be sure where the truth ends and where the fiction begins. There have been quite a few revisions. As I say in the book itself, in my Note from the Author: “Over the years (decades actually) I kept polishing it, nursing it, and nourishing it, always mindful that I mustn’t tamper too much, otherwise I’d lose the innocence, the youthfulness and even the heartbreak in which it was first written.”
Heartbreak is the key word here – heartbreak for the youth and beauty that happens only once and never comes round again. We only get one chance at this.
So I don’t know where Melanie is, but I do know that Stephanie Eaton is alive, very much alive, in these pages.
Fiction is often truer than life itself and in this instance Stephanie doubles for nobody. She is a woman all her own.
If Melanie were to come back, in the flesh, she’d have to compete with Stephanie, in the book, as to which was real, which was invented.
Both, however, are equally dear to me.
Novelist Jack Engelhard is the author of the international bestseller (and later, movie) “Indecent Proposal” and “The Bathsheba Deadline.” His latest novel, “The Girls of Cincinnati,” is available exclusively on Amazon. He can be reached at his website www.jackengelhard.com
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