Thomas Mallon: Finale: A Novel of the Reagan Years

Jim Lehrer and Frank Sesno shared with me their memories of covering Ronald Reagan during his presidency. I’ve also benefited from conversation with Evan Thomas and a sharp-eyed reading of the manuscript by Dr. James Graham Wilson at the U.S. Department of State. The friendship of Tom Duesterberg and Susan Cooper and, above all, John McConnell has aided this book at many different turns.

I’m very grateful for the support of Peg Barratt during her time as dean of the George Washington University’s Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. Also at GW, Faye Moskowitz is a constant source of wisdom and friendship.

Dozens of histories, biographies, memoirs, and diaries played a part in my research. I’m especially indebted to Sally Bedell Smith’s life of Pamela Harriman, Reflected Glory (1996), and to Hitch-22 (2010), the memoirs of my beloved friend Christopher Hitchens. As the months and years of writing this book went by, the idea of fictionalizing Hitch felt less strange than consoling. If he was wrong about the afterlife, and can see this, I beg his forgiveness.

Nothing in my own life would be possible without Bill Bodenschatz, whom I met six days after Ronald Reagan finished his presidency.

Washington, D.C. April 3, 2015

Thomas Mallon is the author of nine novels, including Henry and Clara, Dewey Defeats Truman, Fellow Travelers , and Watergate. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, and The Atlantic, and he was the recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Vursell prize for prose style. He has been the literary editor of GQ and the deputy chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He lives in Washington, D.C., and teaches at the George Washington University.