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Article: Mother of all deadlines.(The Tyrant's Novel)(Book Review)
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- November 29, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Tyrant's Novel, by Thomas Keneally (Nan A. Talese, 235 pp., $25)
YOU have to admire the way Thomas Keneally gets to work. In 1980, he walked into a luggage store in Beverly Hills looking for a briefcase, talked to the owner, a Holocaust survivor, and walked out with the idea for a book. Two years later, his novel Schindler's List was published. In 2002, he tells us, he read an extraordinary study of Saddam Hussein by Mark Bowden in The Atlantic Monthly. Again, two years later, there's a book. More than 40 books now, and he has said he believes this one to be his best.
Perhaps it is. Keneally is a writer's writer, and he knows what makes other ...