What more hospitable environment could Sladder find than Washington? Through the good offices of a friendly prostitute who services the powerful, Sladder spends an evening with Defense Deputy Secretary X at his Georgetown home. “He shared insights of immense value and importance with me (which enabled me to write with some authority), and I treasured him at once as a new champion.”
More importantly, X introduces him to Tobias Goldenstein, publisher of a magazine called New Terrain, which is plainly based on The New Republic. The main supporting character is Lionel Heftihed, modeled on New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier. Sladder dislikes Heftihed for what he sees as his intellectual pretentiousness; mostly he resents him for stealing his wife.
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