Meyer’s diary entries seem more like those of a vainglorious, overachieving high school junior trying to retain the interest of the school’s self-absorbed jock ... [Meyer's] general ruefulness and wry observations feel thin; the book is less a diary of someone’s deepest thoughts, insecurities and secrets than a carefully curated Wikipedia entry ... Wolfe’s Meyer comes most alive when imagining her wild-child side — at one point she jumps naked into a pool at a party at Bobby Kennedy’s — and when she’s flinging zingers at the go-go ladies of the day ... As she devolves into a weird hybrid of Perle Mesta and Nancy Drew, her sense of self-importance billows like a mushroom cloud. 'Can a blonde go up against the whole world?' she wonders. The better question is: Why would we care?
This trippy, intriguing novel imagines what this long-rumored diary might contain ... Written in spare, foreboding entries, The Lost Diary of M takes a fresh look at a woman whose mysterious death will likely never be solved. Author Paul Wolfe takes great care with his subject, painting a nuanced, never sensationalized picture of a complex woman.
In Wolfe’s imagined version, Meyer chronicles her life as an independent, adventurous woman in a secretive company town while also illuminating how her affair with the president transcended the physical and transitioned into the political. Wolfe gives poignant and poetic voice to this artistic woman, a free spirit and early feminist equally embraced and reviled by the insider Georgetown milieu in which she moved with ease if not confidence. What could easily have been salacious fluff capitalizing on JFK’s sexual proclivities is, instead, a compassionate and intricate portrait of a woman’s psyche. By placing Meyer at the nexus of one of the twentieth century’s definitive eras, Wolfe’s inspired study of a cryptic woman is credible and haunting.
The challenge in writing a novel based on real people and events is making the nonfiction details so accurate that readers will accept the creative leaps. For the most part, Wolfe succeeds. One glaring exception, however, occurs when he has JFK saying to Mary that 'the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.' That iconic phrase belonged to Martin Luther King Jr. ... Wolfe writes with grace, and many of his sentences sparkle ... will ring true to those who’ve followed the comet of Camelot, or who lived in Washington during the days when J. Edgar Hoover ran the FBI ... Kennedy aficionados and conspiracy theorists will enjoy a thumping good read and appreciate Paul Wolfe’s prodigious research, while journalists may note with interest his mention of Ben Bradlee in the author’s note.
The author deftly simulates a complicated woman’s diary, creating a document that feels entirely authentic—which includes assuming a certain level of knowledge on the reader’s part about the primary players in several federal agencies of the early 1960s. True to its nature as a diary, the prose is often choppy and desultory, which results in a narrative that is sometimes difficult to follow. Even so, the author includes interesting political and historical details in the entries, shedding light on a woman with a front seat to American history ... A complicated and intimate story of JFK’s secret life, best suited for American history buffs.
Wolfe debuts with this captivating fictionalization of the life and death of Mary Pinchot Meyer ... While Wolfe’s workaday prose does not always meet the enthralling facts of Mary’s life, fans of political dramas will enjoy this new take on a contentious time in the nation’s history.
