Review: Crooked, by Austin Grossman
This is a fictionalised autobiography of Richard Nixon, if he were a reluctant practitioner of dark magic and a Russian spy. That’s an amazing premise and the reason I picked it up.
I hated this book by the end. It fails to live up to its premise, with any action or progress happening in brief second-hand recount, or with the beginning of something interesting always being cut off early, the climax insinuated. Such little consequence, such little pay off, and story beats that happen so late that you’re infuriated by the end.
Perhaps the point is that Nixon was a removed, pathetic figure who sought the exultation of own ego at any cost. Perhaps author Austin Grossman though that making Nixon a peripheral figure in his own story would drive that point home. Instead, I was left with a hollow, deeply unsatisfying book that made said point early, then failed to offer anything more beyond.
