Faith of My Fathers
by John McCain
Random House

John McCain is a career politician. From his time in the Senate to his current quest for the White House, McCain has defined himself as a public figure with a healthy appetite for power and the spotlight that inevitably follows.

McCain has drawn accolades for his forthright nature and willingness to buck the powers that be, whoever they might be at the moment. McCain's leading role in the fight for campaign finance reform has cut to the heart of where the Republican party draws its strength: big money from big donors. His willingness to bid adieu to Pat Buchanan, one of America's least pleasant politicians with a penchant for making anti-Semitic remarks, is another break with conventional wisdom, which holds that an independent Buchanan can do nothing but harm by siphoning votes away from the Republican nominee during the general election.

What's most notable about "Faith of My Fathers," in this context, is its lack of political calculation. At times, McCain paints himself as a wayward youth with a discipline problem and as a hard-drinking womanizer. Politics aside, a reader gets the sense that McCain is honest about moments of weakness that a more deliberately professional politician might have glossed over or omitted.

The first portion of the book tells stories — both personal and professional - of McCain's remarkable father and grandfather, who served as Admirals in the US Navy. For anyone familiar with stock stories of WWII daring-do, this may read like old stuff, but McCain goes to great lengths to personalize it.

It is the book's second half, however, that provides "Faith of My Fathers" with its reason for being. In it, McCain gives a detailed account of his internment in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp in Saigon. His story, full of the day-to-day details of his life as a POW in a hostile country, is nuanced and harrowing; the wildly fluctuating emotional tone reflects a life of misery, uncertainty and hope. McCain's willingness to show the lighter side of prison life and the value of comradeship imbues the struggle with a sense of deeper purpose, and gives the entire section a rare emotional resonance.

"Faith of My Fathers" was written with the assistance of one of McCain's chief aides, Mark Salter, and its prose is workmanlike and straightforward. The intense flood of emotions associated with McCain's years in prison is dammed by the restrained, plain-spoken text; at times, it feels like a more descriptive hand might have wrought more meaning out of the suffering, but the restrained tone generally works well, and keeps the narrative from spiraling into histrionics.

Those who search for the meaning behind the presidential candidates of 2000 need look no further for a clear window in the life of John McCain. "Faith of My Fathers" is strong testimony to the life and character of a man whose ability to endure and move on has set him in motion toward the presidency of the United States.

— James Norton (jim@flakmag.com)