Volume 36, Number 18 · November 23, 1989
The Power of Impotence
By Garry Wills
A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt
by Geoffrey C. Ward
Harper and Row, 889 pp., $27.95
In his brilliant political novel, People Will Always Be Kind (1973), Wilfrid Sheed first shows us Brian Casey from the inside, as a teen-age polio victim; then, in the second part of the novel, Casey is described, from the outside, as a presidential candidate. The young Casey is fighting weakness with a self-crippling irony. Later, as a politician, his irony has become a strength, his special weapon. He is empowered by his intimate acquaintance with human weaknesses.
Review, 2283 words
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