Truth Like the Sun (Vintage Contemporaries)
Jim Lynch
Language: English
Pages: 253
ISBN: 0307949346
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A classic and hugely entertaining political novel, the cat-and-mouse story of urban intrigue in Seattle both in 1962, when Seattle hosted the World's Fair, and in 2001, after its transformation in the Microsoft gold rush.
Larger than life, Roger Morgan was the mastermind behind the fair that made the city famous and is still a backstage power forty years later, when at the age of seventy he runs for mayor in hopes of restoring all of Seattle's former glory. Helen Gulanos, a reporter every bit as eager to make her mark, sees her assignment to investigate the events of 1962 become front-page news with Morgan's candidacy, and resolves to find out who he really is and where his power comes from: in 1962, a brash and excitable young promoter, greeting everyone from Elvis Presley to Lyndon Johnson, smooth-talking himself out of difficult situations, dipping in and out of secret card games; now, a beloved public figure with, it turns out, still-plentiful secrets. Wonderfully interwoven into this tale of the city of dreams are backroom deals, idealism and pragmatism, the best and worst ambitions, and all the aspirations that shape our communities and our lives.
69 Things to Do With a Dead Princess
against a deadline and still have more questions. And I know you have to leave in a bit to—” “You don’t like talking about yourself either.” “I’m not running for mayor, sir.” “That’s a diversion not an excuse. I doubt you share much of yourself with anyone.” She stared at him, clearly weighing her options. “Tell me something about you,” he pressed, pointing his fork at her. “Please. Anything.” She inhaled. “I live in a small apartment a five-minute walk from here, but it feels like it could
sounded like she was crying. WITH SPOKANE’S AIRPORT fogged in for the last two days, the editors agreed they couldn’t wait for the weather to lift. So Helen pulled Elias out of preschool and raced east out of the city before rush hour, up and over Snoqualmie Pass into what looked like cowboy country. Grateful to be out of cell range, she stepped on it, hurtling through tumbleweeds toward the Columbia. Elias woke from a nap and wanted to eat and hear stories and play games. Helen ran more
conspiracy less than a half hour before the paper’s second deadline. By the time the irritable night editor picked up—“City Desk”—the ballroom was too loud for her to be heard over the shouts and croaks and hoots. She watched men and women in their eighties and nineties fighting to their feet, others tiring and plopping back down like a poorly executed wave of undulating sports fans. People started banging coffee cups on tables. Canes thumped the floor. A large woman in a handicapped scooter
when you headed to Nevada after the fair, were you alone?” He walked ahead several strides, his back stiffening, then spun on his heel like a much younger man. “Don’t ask questions to which you obviously know the answers. It’s just asinine.” Chapter Twenty-one OCTOBER 1962 HE’S SEEING HOW FAST his new Impala will go, driving through Nevada toward the California line, pushing the pedal until the needle crosses 120 and the horizon gets hard to pinpoint, everything at once blurring and
rhododendrons. “Ten-thousand-dollar houses with ten-million-dollar views,” he says, knowing reporters can’t resist superlatives. He isn’t sure where he heard this one, though he spins it as gospel: Seattle has gone from a wilderness to a big city faster than any place in the world. Positive press begets more of the same and then gets recycled in local papers, the echo continuing with visiting celebrities feeling obliged to praise this “jewel box of a fair.” Walt Disney raved about it, and John
