Face-Time

By Erik Tarloff

Book Overview

What if your girlfriend is sleeping with your boss? And what if your boss is the President of the United States? These provocative questions are at the heart of Face-Time, a compulsively readable, devastatingly insightful, and darkly humorous morality tale about how celebrity, sex, power, and ultimately love collide in the corridors of the White House. Face-Time is the story of Ben and Gretchen, two young political activists who meet and fall in love while working on a presidential campaign. When their candidate wins, both are given jobs in the new administration, his as an increasingly prominent speechwriter and hers in the Office of Social Affairs. But then Ben finds out that Gretchen has been sleeping with his boss, the president, and he confronts her. Gretchen swears her love for Ben and vows to do anything to ensure their future happiness together...except end the affair. She has gained the ultimate Washington prize: one-on-one "face-time" with the president. And, perhaps not coincidentally, Ben's stock as a speechwriter has never been higher. But is the professional success worth the personal price? Far more than an echo of recent headlines, this thoughtful, riveting novel by Washington insider Erik Tarloff is an important work of politically inspired fiction that poses a fascinating and culturally resonant question: In a society that venerates power and celebrity, how far are we willing to go to bring ourselves in proximity to them? With the inside-the-Beltway appeal of Primary Colors coupled with the literary distinction of All the President's Men, Face-Time is a perceptive entertaining examination of the seductive power, both personal and professional, of position and status at the highest altitudes.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0609604635
• ISBN13: 9780609604632
• Release Date: December 1998
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 249 Pages
• Weight: 0.94 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

More Please

This book is wonderful. This is one of those books that I stayed up all night to finish. Tarloff's writing filled me with the characters's joy and sorrow as if it were my own. The writing is exquisite. The book is perfect. The first thing I did after finishing this book was to look for more books by Erik Tarloff, but there are none. I hope to see more by this author soon, whatever the subject.

A "Couln't put it down until I was finished." book!

Coming on the heels of the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, I hesitated to read this book. It would have been my loss; however, as I enjoyed this book immensely from start to finish. Parallels can most certainly be drawn to well-know presidential dalliances past (and I'm sure present!), but as a Washington outsider, I enjoyed feeling "privy" to the political connections and power struggles in what seems to be a very one-dimensional, at times almost provincial, town. This book contains all the elements that make it a page turner--wit, humor, romance, intrigue, angst, power.... This book humbled me. I thought I possessed a fairly extensive vocabulary, then I read this novel! A suggestion: Keep a dictionary handy!I look forward to Erik Tarloff's next endeavor!

Power+Seduction+Ambition+Romance+Witty Repartee = FACE TIME!

How curious......looking at a presidential affair through the lens of the guy who's being cuckolded by the President! What shines through isn't the tawdriness of the affair (a la Monica), but the zinging emotions that the characters experience, from the elated high of new love to the distressing darkness of things gone wrong. Mix in the spice of politics, and you've got FACE TIME.If you enjoy being totally absorbed by spirited fictional yarns, don't mind a story that hits close to home, at times, and are up for more than a few good laughs....then....you'll love reading FACE TIME. Get it!!!(Reportedly, this is Tarloff's first novel....I hope he'll keep them coming!!!)

Brilliant, insightful, laugh-out-loud funny, profound

This witty, elegantly written novel is so much more than just a riveting story about Washington: it's a hilarious and perceptive book about behavior, what people are really thinking under the surface, whom they're attracted to and why, and how ethics get caught up in the mix. The author is deeply compassionate about seeing people as they really are, illuminating their foibles without throwing rocks at them. (And he doesn't mix metaphors as I just did...) Delightful and wise at the same time --- and maybe above all else, damn funny.