JIM LYNCH has received the H. L. Mencken Award and a Livingston Award for Young Journalists, among other national honors. His most recent novel, Border Songs, won the Washington State Book Award and is currently being adapted for television.
"A flat-out great read with the spirit of a propulsive,
character-driven 1970s movie.... Mr. Lynch pairs unlikely
antagonists: an old-school political fixer blessed with immense
charm, and an overeager newspaperwoman whose research, done in
2001, has the power to destroy him. They never behave predictably,
and their showdown lingers long after Mr. Lynch's story is over."
--Janet Maslin's 10 Favorite Books of 2012, The New York
Times "A terrific two-track novel that alternates between--and
unites--the story of Seattle in 1962, just as the Space Needle is
reaching the sky, and the city's post-dot-com gloom in 2001. The
book is beautifully plotted, textured, and paced." --Thomas Mallon,
The Washingtonian "A rich and engaging tale, with complex
characters and a plot seamlessly interwoven with the history of
Seattle [and] also the topics of ambition, corruption, the Cold
War, and big-time newspaper journalism on the wane. The
protagonists are a flawed and likeable pair that grudgingly admire
each other, and the truth turns out to be elusive, often obscured
by the clouds of memory and the need to sell newspapers. Anyone
interested in the city, political intrigue stories, or just plan
good writing should enjoy this book." --Nancy Fontaine, The
Seattle Post-Intelligencer "This serious but charming rather
old-fashioned sort of book about complicated folks in the midst of
life's struggles is just big enough to embrace a number of
important themes and topics - the making of the fair, the rise and
fall of big city journalism, local politics, the details of history
- and just small enough to make all of this quite intimate and
engaging." --Alan Cheuse, NPR "A tremendously entertaining
yet serious political novel... As with any fine work of art, it's
hard to divine just why this novel works so well. And, as with such
art, there's a lot more going on than appears on the surface. I
dislike terms like 'instant classic' but this comes awfully close."
--Richard Sherbaniuk, The Edmonton Journal
"Propulsive... The poetic intensity of Lynch's descriptions
perfectly balances the restless, relentless pace of a novel that
never loosens its grip." --Anna Lundow, The Christian Science
Monitor "A beautifully crafted, fictional remembrance of the
Seattle World's Fair and a cleverly plotted tale of the very public
death of one man's political ambitions....Lynch is a sparkling
host, rendering history in glorious technicolor and the recent past
in absolute and black-and-white moral tones." --Nick March, The
National [U.K.] "Alternating between the two periods, Jim
Lynch's novel is a brilliantly disturbing dissection of political
morality, where right and wrong are, like Seattle itself, blurred
in a grey mist." --John Harding, Daily Mail [U.K.] "A
swirling portrait of a place, like many a Western city, that's
equal parts hucksterism, genuine civilizational hope, profiteering
racket and progressive mecca, Truth Like the Sun deserves
attention and will reward reflection." --M. Allen Cunningham,
The Oregonian "This brisk, bustling and good-humored work
[is] taut and accomplished. . . clever and propulsive." --Jenny
Shank, The Dallas Morning News "A story of civic pride,
political intrigue and journalistic tenacity. . . Any reader
interested in the relationship between any town and its most
enthusiastic participants will respond to this engaging story."
--Ron Charles, The Washington Post "A consummate
stylist....The obvious cultural touch point for Lynch's novel is
Citizen Kane, [and] readers are confronted with the American
obsession with ambition is all its tarnished glory." - Christian
House, The Independent [U.K.] "Addictive....Told in chapters
that alternate between two eras, its prose reflects the two moods:
1962 sparkles like an old-time midway, crammed with celebrity
cameos, souvenir Champagne glasses and fast-talking men in hats;
2001 feels reflective and a little world-weary, a city once bitten
and now twice shy." --Moira Macdonald, The Seattle Times
"Enveloping and propulsive....Lynch's twosome, a 30-ish newspaper
reporter and the much older bon vivant who is known unofficially as
"Mr. Seattle" are such fine creations that they can't be reduced
thumbnail descriptions....There is much marveling to be done as
Truth Like the Sun unfolds. Lynch captures the excitement of
a fair that proudly showed off the world of tomorrow but
inadvertently revealed more than it should have." --Janet Maslin,
The New York Times "A briskly paced novel that gives us an
insider's view into both the politics of culture and the culture of
politics." --Kirkus "Often funny and sometimes devastating
but always to the point, Truth Like the Sun reflects back on
the 1962 World's Fair that put Seattle on the map. With the keen
eye of the journalist he was and the nimbleness of the novelist he
has become, Jim Lynch provides a thought-provoking fictional
portrait of a city on the make and its somewhat tarnished tribe of
civic strivers." --Ivan Doig "This book is one of a kind, and a
great story. At a time when Seattle is celebrating the anniversary
of the World's Fair, Lynch's novel is a bracing reminder of the
larger context: an uncertain city hoping to make a mark in
mid-century, and then figuring out where it is in a more globalized
world forty years later. It's smart - and unique - to link these
with one wonderfully rendered character, still trying to have a
hand in how his city will go." - Rick Simonson, Elliott Bay Book
Company "Truth Like the Sun, read after Jim Lynch's
celebrated Highest Tide, confirms the tidal wave of his
talent. Set again in the Pacific Northwest he has explored in such
depth and variety, this is a city story all the way. Ambition,
payoff, anxiety, payback, decadence and revenge dominate Seattle's
story during the World's Fair of 1962 and thirty-nine years later,
during the crest of the dot.com boom and not many weeks before the
World Trade Center--the Other Coast's Space Needle--endured the
mother of all collapses. Lynch's power of concentration depends on
his respect for quiddities. His detailing of the moment-to-moment
stratagems of a reporter stalking a political big-foot, and of the
big-foot's bravura evasions--the hunt proceeding throughout the
storied and exotic environment of any right-minded person's
favorite city--is thrilling." --Geoffrey Wolff "Jim Lynch writes of
the city where I live with great brio and persuasiveness. The
joinery between the two halves of the narrative [1962 and 2001] is
seamless. His handling of the light, just-between-friends style of
routine civic graft in the 1960s seems dead-on, and his
only-slightly alternative history of the city is at least as
plausible as the official version. His people live and breathe on
the page. I was engrossed throughout." --Jonathan Raban
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