Books in Brief: The Senator

The Senator, by Drew Pearson (Doubleday, $6.95). I can’t help it. I kinda liked The Senator. It’s the Drew Pearson novel in which, would you believe, a crooked senator has expense accounts and indulges in ungentle bribery; the evidence of same is stolen from his files by a recently discharged floozy-type secretary; and turned over to a crusading columnist who blows the whistle on the operation. The senator is subsequently censured by his peers. Thomas Dodd, James Boyd, Drew Pearson. Well, think again. The senator is about the only likable character in the book and the peeping-tom journalist is a crude, lewd and vulgar loudmouth, with hardly a redeeming feature. Everything’s a little larger than life, and a little overdrawn, but, by and large, Pearson’s flyer into fiction is successful. Perhaps because that’s what he’s been writing all along.

PL

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Priscilla L. Buckley

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The Senator, by Drew Pearson (Doubleday, $6.95). I can’t help it. I kinda liked The Senator. It’s the Drew Pearson novel in which, would you believe, a crooked senator has expense accounts and indulges in ungentle bribery; the evidence of same is stolen from his files by a recently discharged floozy-type secretary; and turned over to a crusading columnist who blows the whistle on the operation. The senator is subsequently censured by his peers. Thomas Dodd, James Boyd, Drew Pearson. Well, think again. The senator is about the only likable character in the book and the peeping-tom journalist is a crude, lewd and vulgar loudmouth, with hardly a redeeming feature. Everything’s a little larger than life, and a little overdrawn, but, by and large, Pearson’s flyer into fiction is successful. Perhaps because that’s what he’s been writing all along.