“Smart, well-written, and frequently funny, The Race offers some interesting speculation into the mind of the American politician…” – Marc Schuster, Small Press Reviews

Readers, it’s another great day here on the Jacke Blog. My short novel The Race has received another wonderful review, this time from Marc Schuster of Small Press Reviews.

(For those of you who missed the previous review from My Little Book Blog (“warm and full of life”), feel free to catch up on the review itself or my reaction to it.)

Schuster’s review begins with a perfect encapsulation of the book:

Jacke Wilson’s The Race is an incredibly astute novella about ego and politics that attempts to explain why anyone in their right mind might run for political office. The answer, it turns out, is that they wouldn’t, as the political arena is reserved for the eternally deluded and arguably insane.

Awesome. “Eternally deluded and arguably insane” could be the title!

And this is also a very shrewd (and generous!) assessment:

There’s certainly plenty of dry humor to be had in the proceedings — particularly as Olson [the former governor at the heart of the book] does his best to turn the rancid lemons of his tattered political career into saccharine-sweet lemonade — but the real strength of Wilson’s writing is in its Marxian critique of American politics.

Man. “[R]ancid lemons of his tattered political career into saccharine-sweet lemonade” is a phrase I should have used in the book itself. Simply perfect.

And then there’s this, which once again really gets at the heart of what I was trying to accomplish:

[The Race‘s main character] demonstrates that what truly drives politicians is a desire to control the narratives of their own lives, as his tragically optimistic efforts at running for office are forever haunted by the specter of the good man he was before throwing his hat into the political arena.

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. What a great review.

My thanks to Marc for giving my little book a chance and for crafting such a thoughtful, well-written review. You should definitely check out Small Press Reviews – Marc’s clearly an intelligent guy and he’s doing some really good work over there.

And of course, you can find The Race at Amazon.com (in Kindle and paperback versions) and other formats and locations.

Are you a reviewer? Leave a comment or send me an email and I’ll ship you a free review copy. Or you can enjoy the 100 Objects series, which is still going strong.