Man of the People

October 14, 2002
Alexander has written lives of Sylvia Plath and James Dean, but he became a political journalist in the 1990s and recently wrote several articles about Republican Senator McCain of Arizona for Rolling Stone.
The first two-thirds of this biography retell the stories (third-generation navy, five years as a POW in Hanoi) we've already heard, in McCain's own Faith of My Fathers
(1999) and Robert Timberg's The Nightingale's Song
(1995) without substantially revising the public understanding of McCain. In fact, Alexander's version occasionally seems politically naïve. He deals with McCain's transition from military officer to aspiring congressman, for example, in just a few pages, never questioning the motives for this career change. This lack of political perspective may stem from Alexander's populist adulation of his subject, whom he calls "the one current politician who best articulates the hopes and dreams of the common man." It's no surprise, then, that the blow-by-blow coverage of McCain's run at the White House is sharp, richly detailed journalism. Unfortunately, the story trails off after McCain drops out of the race; there's some material on the campaign finance reform bill, and an interesting rumor that the Democrats tried to lure the senator out of the Republican Party in early 2001, but then there's really nowhere else to go (the book's epilogue was not available for review). Alexander, a fellow at the Hoover Institution and cohost of WABC radio's Batchelor and Alexander,
offers an adequate enough account of McCain's life, but it will have a tough time competing against McCain's latest memoir, Worth the Fighting For
(Forecasts, Sept. 23).

November 15, 2002
This first complete biography of Sen. John McCain-navy brat, navy pilot, prisoner of war, populist Republican legislator, and presidential candidate-is presented by Alexander, political pundit and biographer of Sylvia Plath (Rough Magic) and J.D. Salinger (Salinger: A Biography). The author admires McCain and believes that he could have been elected president in 2000 by running as an independent. While McCain's five-and-a-half-year ordeal as a prisoner of war in the notorious "Hanoi Hilton" is vividly told, his career as a representative and a senator from Arizona is treated more fully than any other part of his life. McCain's ongoing feud with President Bush over dirty tricks in the 2000 Republican primary is also thoroughly described, as is McCain's signature issue, campaign-funding reform. (Elizabeth Drew nicely tells the story of McCain's leadership of the campaign reform movement in Citizen McCain.) Alexander does not write with the verve and introspection that McCain does in his two autobiographies, Faith of Our Fathers and Worth Fighting For, but he offers an informative, politically astute biography that is recommended for public libraries.-Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA

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