Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life Read Free Page B

everybody in stitches. Sometimes we would even act out parts. I will never forget one night when we did
Beauty and the Beast,
Dick was the Beast, and one of the other men dressed up like Beauty. This sounds rather silly to be telling it now, but in those days we were all very young, and we had to do home entertainment rather than go out and spend money. We used to put on funny shows. It was all good, clean fun, and we had loads of laughs.”
    We might all, writers included, wonder: Did they know the story of Beauty and the Beast so well that they didn’t consult the text? What fairy tale might people know now that would allow them to put on a performance without referring to a book? Where did the costumes come from or, if they were improvised, out ofwhat? How was it decided that two men would have the starring roles, and was one of them embarrassed to be acting the part of Beauty? Did they just eat dinner, or did they also drink? If so, what? How much?
    When someone is recounting an event, as Mrs. Nixon does, what impulse is it that makes a person conclude her story by giving last-minute information, as if we might otherwise misunderstand? Do storytellers assume they can manage the response of the listener or reader by deciding, themselves, on an explanation of the meaning of the story? Are writers ever off duty, or, as listeners or readers, are they always sleuthing for what’s between the lines? When Mrs. Nixon concludes, is she rationalizing? Or just more grown-up, with distance from that scene? Would she like to be back in that room, watching that performance? If she could go back in time, what might have changed for her? Why do so many writers like ending on a note of ambiguity, whereas people telling each other stories like to make the meaning of the ending explicit? Why do writers resist believing that stories can be summed up, and instead take in whatever text they’re presented with from a distance, skeptically, on second reading?
    Mrs. Nixon’s statement has enough specificity to be believable. Why do writers want so much more from stories than the literal level? Can this story be understood very differently from the way the storyteller reports and makes sense of it? However that question is answered, how much does it matter that someone who went on to be President of the United States was central to the story? How much does it matter that his wife is also a public figure? Are there stories that could be told about the past that could be described as the opposite of “good, clean fun”? If so, how might we get them? Could this story be the same without the mention of money? Did the usually recalcitrant Mrs. Nixon tell this storyin response to something, or because it was a night she’d long remembered? If Mrs. Nixon could tell this story again, would this still be the version she’d want told for posterity? Does this sound like a recited story, or a written story? What would be the difference between the two? Do we assume that Mr. McGinniss quoted Mrs. Nixon exactly, or might he have cleaned up the quote? What happened when the laughter ended?
    When campaigning on television was quite new, and the stakes were certainly higher than they were when playing a game in someone’s living room, Mrs. Nixon once made a mistake on camera. Questioned by Bud Wilkinson and Paul Keyes, “She answered a couple of Wilkinson /Paul Keyes questions of less than monumental importance, and then, as the audience—on cue—applauded, she grinned and . . . began to applaud herself.” Joe McGinniss, in
The Selling of the President 1968,
continues: “It was simply a reflex. There had been so much applause in her life. Going all the way back to the days of Beauty and the Beast. And all through this campaign. She had sat, half listening, then with her mind drifting more and more as the weeks and speeches passed so slowly into one another. Bringing her finally to this television studio on this final night where all that was left of