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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