Write It When I'm Gone: Remarkable Off-the-Record Conversations with Gerald R. Ford is not chock-full of remarkable remarks by the 38th president of the United States, but it is a fitting tribute to the man, who I believe was one of the country's truly great statesmen.
Unfortunately, the writing was sloppier than I'd expected from Thomas DeFrank, a Newsweek and Daily News reporter. With the author's considerable experience and credentials, I was stunned to find redundancies and out-of-sequence segments in almost every chapter, pluse a few just plain grammatical gaffes. Why it was allowed to surf through copyediting at publisher (Putnam) may be because they wanted to hurry to market, but still... the oversights were disappointing. (On page 12 readers can marvel at the gem, "Usually, we never knew which.")
Grumblings aside, the book is worth reading for those who like a little - but not too much - political perspective.
I knew how the story would end, of course - Ford died in 2007 - but I found myself surprisingly sad as I read the final chapters. Grumblings aside, I believe this redeems DeFrank's writing. I'm pretty sure (that is, I sure hope!) DeFrank could've written a better quality book, overall, I'm glad he wrote this one.
Certainly, what readers take away regarding Mr. Ford is subject to individual interpretation. Personally, I gained a greater appreciation for the man who seems to have lived every day, and served many decades, according to an (unfortunately) uncommon set of principals - and I think that's worth slogging through a few sloppy paragraphs.
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