Ah, those whom the gods wish to destroy first make her a young heiress and daughter of the U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James’s in the early 1920s. To be fair, Jean Buckman does survive her horrific marriage to a British lord, but only because she finds love and children elsewhere while still married. Buckman is no soapy heroine, however, and thanks to Vanessa Beaumont’s formidable skill in depicting a union gone to hell and the consequences of grief that only a mother can feel, The Other Side of Paradise is its own triumph.
with Lisa Dickey
What an unorthodox and original way of looking at events over the past 60 years or so: from the perspective of what transpired in the Situation Room of the White House, a remarkably unimpressive suite of offices in the basement, just off the cafeteria everyone calls “the mess.” George Stephanopoulos, of course, spent time there himself when he worked for Bill Clinton and traces the beginning of this space to the Eisenhower era, when it was recommended that a bowling alley in the West Wing basement be converted into what Ike called “a little watch office” to monitor military events from the White House. J.F.K. finally O.K.’d the Situation Room after the Bay of Pigs crisis, but some presidents used it more often than others, notably Ronald Reagan, who held weekly meetings there. It is in this room that President Obama and top officials planned and then watched the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden, nicknamed “the Pacer.”
