The Sun King
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The Sun King, the fifth novel by Washington Post journalist David Ignatius, presents the tale of Sandy Galvin, a billionaire of questionable background who mesmerizes the social and political Versailles of Washington with his charm and pelf. Sandy buys public and private affirmation to compensate for a humble childhood and a humbling rejection in college from beautiful Candace, now a gimlet-eyed newspaperwoman.
Ignatius, an artisan of international thrillers with a solid grasp of political bureaucracies, especially the CIA, is admired for breakneck plots that involve mysterious conspirators with fathomless resources of money and power. In his previous novel, the well-received A Firing Offense, an intrepid newsman drawn into a bewildering hall of mirrors discovers appalling truths. The Sun King, an ironic novel of manners, uses the same paranoid perspective and similar narrative furniture to very different effect. Feckless David Cantor, the narrator, writes for a glossy, ridiculous society magazine. He sneers at the vain nabobs and wannabes of the capital's "glitterati" but gradually learns that he is blind to layers of deception defining his own world. Meanwhile, Sandy's flamboyant schemes center upon spooking the inept heirs of a major newspaper into selling him the family business. He wins public acclaim and White House access, but also attracts the Feds and implacable creditors. His major moral mistake, however, is to debase journalistic integrity in favor of stockholder value. By unwholesome coincidence, the novel's three principals all attended Harvard, and secrets from their past meld with yearnings of the present to bring them to grief. With both Sandy and David harboring romantic fantasies for Candace, and financial collapse and fatal illness lurking in the wings, The Sun King offers readers a full dose of romance and satire (along with witty social insights) but not the full weight of a tragedy or melodrama.
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