The Solomon Scandals A Washington newspaper novel by David Rothman

Why I feel like Billy Pilgrim: ‘The Solomon Scandals’ as a time-warpy book

Was it Jerry Ford or Jimmy Carter who sat in the Oval Office when I fin­ished the orig­i­nal draft of The Solomon Scan­dals, my Wash­ing­ton news­pa­per novel?

I do remem­ber what I was writ­ing on—an old elec­tric type­writer: first a ver­i­ta­ble antique from the early 60s, then a some­what newer model with a metal golf ball: a red Selec­tric that I later gave away to the clean­ing lady.

After NPR ran a seg­ment the other day about age, time and the brain, I inevitably won­dered, “What does this mean for nov­el­ists?” I was in my late 20s or early 30s back when I was see­ing, hear­ing, touch­ing, smelling, tast­ing and oth­er­wise under­go­ing the expe­ri­ences that I fic­tion­al­ized for Scan­dals. The world was fresher to me and my generation—D.C. scan­dals included, even with Water­gate hav­ing already happened.

In that sense Scan­dals is a 30ish writer’s novel, and maybe this gets me off the hook when NPR tells how the young remem­ber in more detail. At the same time, per­haps Scan­dals also reflects what I learned in the three decades that sped by. Talk about Billy Pil­grim–style time warps. You might say I didn’t just write my his­tor­i­cal fiction—I lived it.

Mak­ing the book all the more time-warpy, the fore­word and after­word reflect on the Solomon Scan­dals after the pas­sage of a mere cen­tury or so. Oh, to think that James Joyce could struc­ture Ulysses around less than a day in the lives of the main char­ac­ters!

Ques­tion of the moment: What’s the ideal age for a nov­el­ist? With such an empha­sis on youth, espe­cially on good looks for TV and jacket cov­ers, are pub­lish­ers ageist? Or are they just rec­og­niz­ing neu­ro­bi­o­log­i­cal real­ity? I myself vote for the for­mer expla­na­tion, given all the mem­o­ries and insights that can enrich an older novelist’s work. But then maybe I’m being ageist in my own way. Could it be that 38—about Charles Dick­ens’ age when he wrote David Cop­per­field—offers the best mix of obser­va­tional pow­ers and experience?

Image of the gray Selec­tric: Via Wik­pe­dia.

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