Hitchens on the Washington Novel

Hitchens on the Washington Novel

I think he is looking for the Washington Novel in all the wrong places.  From what I'm reading, I would nominate Dinaw Mengestu's The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears as a very fine Washington novel.  Yes, Washington is politics, but there is more to it than politics, and the politics there while of world importance don't tend to make for good novels, as exhibited by Mr. Hitchen's survey.  He does, however, deal with Henry Adams's magnificent Democracy, a novel I anticipated being bored by and ended up delighted with.