Collection
Description
A God in Ruins Spanning the decades from World War II to the 2008 presidential campaign, A God in Ruins is the riveting story of Quinn Patrick O'Connell, an honest, principled, and courageous man on the brink of becoming the second Irish Catholic President of the United States. But Quinn is a man with an explosive secret that can shatter his political amibitions, threaten his life, and tear the country apart--a secret buried for over a half century--that even he does not know...
User reviews
LibraryThing member DWWilkin
During a recent trip to the hospital, this book was handed to me to read and pass the time. A good opening had the potential to grab you. Leon Uris doesn't disappoint here. The shoo-in for the presidency in november's election, an orphan raised roman-catholic, finds one week before the election
That could be a great premise but then what... The story falls apart. Uris tries to create tension in our two party system in the US with the histories of not only the RC/Jew protagonist, but his rival who is the president. If that had been handled better, perhaps this book would succeed, but Uris has chosen his battlegrounds poorly. Republicans do not do everything poorly in regards to the nation, but in God in Ruins Republicans always fail.
Democrats always succeed, and where we have some true named places and people, and ambiance, too much fictionalized that you have to read (AMERIGUN-is the NRA, Charlton Heston is their president so an Actor leads AMERIGUN...) throws the book into that thinly disguised type of clap trap.
The writing style of Uris also fails. People, all even the dumb ones, are too smart, for the use half sentences to talk to one another. Always full of depth of meaning. Our leaders maybe that smart, but I doubt it. Some of them are geniuses, some are charismatic dilettantes in reality, which Uris does not portray. All his politicians are brilliant.
So the story fails. It could have been good. It wasn't.
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that his birth-parents, both deceased, are Jewish.That could be a great premise but then what... The story falls apart. Uris tries to create tension in our two party system in the US with the histories of not only the RC/Jew protagonist, but his rival who is the president. If that had been handled better, perhaps this book would succeed, but Uris has chosen his battlegrounds poorly. Republicans do not do everything poorly in regards to the nation, but in God in Ruins Republicans always fail.
Democrats always succeed, and where we have some true named places and people, and ambiance, too much fictionalized that you have to read (AMERIGUN-is the NRA, Charlton Heston is their president so an Actor leads AMERIGUN...) throws the book into that thinly disguised type of clap trap.
The writing style of Uris also fails. People, all even the dumb ones, are too smart, for the use half sentences to talk to one another. Always full of depth of meaning. Our leaders maybe that smart, but I doubt it. Some of them are geniuses, some are charismatic dilettantes in reality, which Uris does not portray. All his politicians are brilliant.
So the story fails. It could have been good. It wasn't.
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LibraryThing member junebedell
I was surprised at how prophetic this book was, having been published in 1999. The main character, a Marine through and through, finds himself and his squad on a "find and snatch" mission in Iran that is eerily similar to the 2011 mission to get Bin Laden. Then, there is the struggle against
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AMERIGUN (read NRA) organization and the attempt to pass meaningful legislation on gun control in this country. Go figure! Show Less
LibraryThing member DeanClark
Couldn't quite finish it. Reads like an effort to be the Great American Novel.
Subjects
Publication
Harper Collins (1999), Edition: First, 483 pages
Original publication date
1999
ISBN
0061083772
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Language
Original language
English