The Solomon Scandals A Washington newspaper novel by David Rothman

Major characters—from the real estate tycoon to the Spinoza-crazed reporter

Rebecca Kitiona-Fenton: Great-grandniece of Jonathan Stone, the nar­ra­tor. Tire­less stu­dent of “pre­vir­tual media,” the inky old paper kind.

Jon Stone, the nar­ra­tor: A reporter whose curios­ity might kill his career and maybe him. Sees Wash­ing­ton as a white-collar fac­tory town. Cov­ered the Kent State mas­sacre while work­ing in a blue-collar town. A Jew raised in McLean, a Waspy D.C. sub­urb. Not a philoso­pher but has put Spin­oza (image) to work as a mentor.

Sy Solomon: The sleazy real estate tycoon in the title—a mas­sive ex-bricklayer with two miss­ing fin­ger­tips and a huge, rick­ety build­ing hous­ing IRS and CIA bureau­crats. Friends with Pres­i­dent Eddy Bullard and the Wash­ing­ton Telegram’s top edi­tor, George McWilliams. “Decency,” Solomon says of the tar­gets of his cam­paign dona­tions, “it’s the first thing I look for in a politi­cian. Please, Jon. Do you want another Watergate?”

George McWilliams, the edi­tor: An embit­tered politi­cian named a baby shark after him at a VIP hang­out. Friends depict Mac as a priest in an edi­to­r­ial cathe­dral. Wears a Rolex and enjoys tim­ing news­room work­ers with it. But why is he at the Telegram? Made a for­tune out­smart­ing the Brah­mans of Wall Street and beyond. Is Brook­lyn born, but loves win­ners and grew up root­ing for the Yankees.

Wendy Blevin: Vassar-educated gos­sip colum­nist and mul­ti­mil­lion­aire socialite who may or may not be sab­o­tag­ing Stone’s inves­ti­ga­tion of Solomon. Years ear­lier helped Saul Alin­sky flesh out two of the eleven Rules for Rad­i­cals. Jumps to her death off a bal­cony at the Water­gate. Fall­out from the Solomon Scandals?

Ezekiel Jerome Raw­son: Jon Stone’s direct boss—E.J. for short. Fled to D.C. from West Vir­ginia Gothic.

Rex­wood Garst: Stone’s resume-obsessed rival at the Telegram. “Serbo-Croatian, that’s the key. I know how to speak it.”

Lew Fen­ton: Con­struc­tion union leader and source of the few neg­a­tive quotes about Solomon in the Telegram’s library. Not the biggest fan of Solomon’s con­struc­tion practices.

Donna Stack­el­baum: Stone’s lover and old fam­ily friend who leaves him for a cor­rupt Lam­borgh­ini owner. About to get caught up in a nuclear scan­dal con­nected in some ways with the Solomon Scandals.

Margo Danial­son: B.A. in Medieval Stud­ies, from Ober­lin Col­lege. Trapped in the Augean Sta­bles of the Gen­eral Ser­vices Admin­is­tra­tion. Stone’s part­ner in crime or anti-crime. Helps Stone cir­cum­vent Larry Zumwelt­nar, GSA’s sleaze of a PR bureau­crat. Steers Stone to Lucky O’Brien, who, despite being an oft-drunk GS-11 with dreams of mak­ing a mint as a tabloid tip­ster, may actu­ally offer some use­ful information.

Hilton Kahn and Stonewall Lee: Reli­ably crooked lawyers work­ing for Solomon, in GSA and zon­ing mat­ters respectively.

Fred Green: Muck­rak­ing con­gres­sional aide. Deep Throats on the Alexandria-to-Mount Ver­non bike path.

Herb and Lydia Stone: Jon’s par­ents. Herb works for a PR and lob­by­ing firm that is in cahoots with a bank financ­ing Solomon’s projects.

(Orig­i­nally pub­lished on June 18, 2009. Moved up to closer to the top of the blog.)

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