Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan

1999 book by Edmund Morris

Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan

First edition cover

Author| Edmund Morris
Subject| Ronald Reagan
Publisher| Modern Library

Publication date

| 1999
Publication place| United States
Media type| Print (hardcover)
Pages| 874
ISBN| 978-0-375-75645-0

Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan is a 1999 book by Edmund Morris, and the first authorized biography of an incumbent U.S. president. It details the life of Ronald Reagan, from his childhood to his postpresidency, from the point of view of a heavily fictionalized version of the author, who portrays himself as a contemporary and lifelong friend of Reagan. Numerous other imagined characters, including a fictional wife and son of Morris, and a gossip columnist whose nonexistent correspondence Morris cites, feature as well. To write Dutch, Morris spoke to Reagan over a period of thirteen years and was granted special access to the Reagan administration and the White House. He found the information that he gained unsatisfactory, which led him to write a semi-autobiographical novel rather than a normal biography. Upon its publication by Random House, Dutch faced immediate controversy, as critics disagreed with Morris' use of fictional elements within an ostensibly biographical work that the Reagan family had trusted him to write factually.

## Contents

[edit]

Dutch is narrated by a highly fictionalized version of Morris whose life intersects with Reagan's over the course of the book.[1] The fictional Morris was born in the United States in 1912,[1] whereas the author was born in Kenya in 1940.[2] He grows up with Reagan,[3] attends college with him,[4] is saved from drowning by a teenaged Reagan (who would have been working as a lifeguard at the time) [5] and serves under him in the U.S. Army Air Forces.[4] He has a wife, Sydney, who dies young[6] (the real Morris was married for over fifty years to Sylvia Jukes[7]), as well as a son named Gavin[8] (Morris never had children). Gavin, who acts as a political foil to Reagan (Gavin turns from liberal to underground radical, and Reagan turns from liberal to Republican),[5] attends the University of California in Berkeley, allowing Morris to give an imaginary perspective on the riots that occurred there,[9] and ultimately commits suicide due to Reagan's actions as Governor of California.[10] The fictionalized Morris is also friend to gossip columnist Paul Rae,[11] who sends correspondence to Morris that is cited throughout the book;[12] Rae, however, is wholly fictional, and so is his correspondence.[11]

Morris' alternation between real and imagined events renders it difficult for readers to distinguish between fact and fiction; for example, he relates fictional encounters with a young Reagan in the same context in which he relates an actual meeting with the Reagans at the White House.[13] Dutch uses an experimental format that deliberately confuses reality: Morris incorporates imagined screenplays and camera directions to parallel Reagan's real-life career as a film actor, and inserts fake footnotes and citations to lend realism to the book.[5] There are also historical inaccuracies in Dutch: Morris erroneously suggests that Ukraine and Belarus embraced Soviet rule.[14] He also implies that Reagan based the Strategic Defense Initiative off of Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel, A Princess of Mars, even though Reagan himself never indicated such.[11]

## Composition and Publication

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After the success of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Morris' 1979 biography of Theodore Roosevelt that received the American Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1980,[3] First Lady Nancy Reagan, along with political consultant Michael Deaver,[14] invited Morris to write a biography of President Ronald Reagan,[5] which was to be the first authorized biography of an incumbent U.S. president.[10] Morris was granted a thirty-minute interview with Reagan each month, as well as access to Reagan administration officials and White House meetings that did not pertain to national security.[10] Book publisher Random House gave Morris a $3 million advance to submit the completed manuscript by 1993.[11]

Morris spoke to Reagan over the course of thirteen years to write Dutch, and also claimed to have conducted extensive research on the president,[1] gathering information from Reagan's family, friends and rivals,[9] and even travelling with Reagan after his presidency.[5] Nonetheless, he claimed that the information at his disposal was insufficient for his initial intent of writing a compelling Reagan biography,[1] complaining about the banality and incoherence of Reagan's answer to his questions and describing Reagan as an "apparent airhead".[15] Morris stated, "Nobody around him understood him. I, every person I interviewed, almost without exception, eventually would say, 'You know, I could never really figure him out.' "[16] Because of this, he turned to the prospect of writing a semi-fictional work presented as a memoir.[5]

Morris' intentional conflation of fiction and nonfiction, which he insisted was an innovative literary technique of his, had already been commonplace in postmodern literature.[11] He incorporated fictional elements into Dutch for several reasons. He wanted to hide his guilt for admiring Reagan, whose politics differed greatly from his own;[5] regretted having been unable to grow up with Reagan and decided to live vicariously through the fictional "Edmund Morris";[4] thought that imagined scenes humanizing Reagan would incline readers to more readily empathize and identify with Reagan;[4] and, by employing the points of view of multiple fictional characters, wanted to provide multiple perspectives toward Reagan.[12] Morris wanted Dutch to be read as a work of fiction rather than as an authoritative biography,[4] and insisted that it would be easy for readers to discern fiction from fact within the book.[11] A 115-page section at the book's end consists only of the facts.[13] The Reagan family, however, thought that Morris' fictionalized biography was a wasted opportunity, as Reagan had begun to deteriorate from Alzheimer's disease, the effects of which prevented future historians from obtaining history from him.[5]

Morris took fourteen years to write Dutch.[9] After failing to meet the 1993 deadline, he accrued a debt amounting to double the advance he was paid, and Random House threatened to confiscate the advance were he to abandon the project,[6] which he did not; he completed the book, which was edited by Robert Loomis and published as Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan in 1999.[17]

## Reception

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Dutch was published to mixed reviews, but reached third place on several bestseller lists in the United States[5] and received positive testimonials, many of which feature on the book's end cover.[9] Multiple reviewers felt that it was dishonest and inappropriate for Morris to include fictional elements in what was supposed to have been an authorized biography of Ronald Reagan.[1][5][18] Francine Fialkoff of Library Journal noted that Dutch lacked annotations to help the reader discern what was real and what was not, and also argued that Morris and Random House should not have promoted Dutch as a biography in the first place when it was closer in veracity to a novel.[1] Dutch nonetheless received praise from Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, who opined that Morris' unusual narrative style made the book more entertaining.[19]

Critics condemned Morris for disregarding the value of pure history;[5][18] Albert Scardino of New Statesman wrote that "Dutch himself has left for an unvisitable world, his memory erased by Alzheimer's."[5] Minsoo Kang and John F. Stacks parodied Morris' unconventional narrative in "Reading Dutch: A Review In Three Parts" and "Mixing Fact and Fiction" respectively, in which they recounted fake conversations with Morris.[2][13]

Many critics opined that Morris was the wrong type of person to write a biography of Ronald Reagan, as he was only a lay writer,[8][15] and argued that a historian would have been more competent in writing the biography.[3] Some expressed perplexion as to how the same man who wrote The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt could write such an irregular work.[15] Robert H. Ferrell of the Indiana University Press stated that Morris missed the point of writing a biography; someone reading a Reagan biography would expect to learn more about Ronald Reagan, but Morris, he alleges, wrote Dutch for the purpose of self-indulgence, and as a result failed to make his readers understand Reagan.[9] Joan Didion faulted Morris as beholden to Reagan, incurious about political matters, uninterested in the Iran–Contra affair, and reliant on narrative gimmicks to tell a vapid tale; and suggests that Morris was little more than a mouthpiece for the Reagan administration.[20]

Dutch was praised as well-researched and stylistically beautiful by some critics,[13][1] but derided as incoherent, overwritten and unreadable by others who found the narrative difficult to follow.[8][11]

## References

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1. ^ a b c d e f g Fialkoff, Francine (November 15, 1999). "Getting in Dutch with Fact and Fiction". Library Journal. 124 (19): 53.
2. ^ a b Kang, Minsoo (December 2000). "Reading 'Dutch': A Review in Three Parts". Rethinking History. 4 (3): 407.
3. ^ a b c Galligan, Edward L. (Summer 2000). "Varieties of Biography". Sewanee Review. 108 (3): 474.
4. ^ a b c d e Maslan, Mark (Spring 2007). "Telling to Live the Tale: Ronald Reagan, Edmund Morris, and Postmodern Nationalism". Representations. 98 (1): 62–76.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Scardino, Albert (November 8, 1999). "The do Ron, Ron". New Statesman. 128 (4461).
6. ^ a b Whalen, Richard J. (January 2000). "The 'Gipper' Is Missing". Across the Board. 37 (1): 75.
7. ^ Rodgers, Marion Elizabeth. "RIP Sylvia Jukes Morris: 'Lady of Letters'". The American Spectator.
8. ^ a b c Noah, Timothy (November 8, 1999). "The Wreck of the Edmund Morris". Fortune. 140 (9).
9. ^ a b c d e Ferrell, Robert H. (2004). "The Large Book versus the Small: A Presidential Historian's Consideration of Three Recent Biographies". Indiana Magazine of History. 100 (4): 378–385\. ISSN 0019-6673.
10. ^ a b c Sloan, John W.; Shelley, Fred M. (September 2000). "Untitled". Social Science Quarterly (University of Texas Press). 81 (3): 895–896.
11. ^ a b c d e f g Edwards, Lee (January 2000). "The Quest for Reagan". World & I. 15 (1).
12. ^ a b Smith, Wendy (October 11, 1999). "Edmund Morris: Writer Behind the Throne". Publishers Weekly. 246 (41).
13. ^ a b c d Stacks, John F.; Blackman, Ann (October 4, 1999). "Mixing Fact and Fiction". Time International - South Pacific Edition (40): 36.
14. ^ a b Sicherman, Harvey (Summer 2000). "The Rest of Reagan". Orbis. 44 (3): 477.
15. ^ a b c Wilson, James Q. (December 1999). "The Actor and the Critic". Commentary. 108 (5).
16. ^ Stahl, Lesley (interviewer) (June 9, 2004) Morris: "Reagan Still A Mystery." CBS News.com
17. ^ "Where the written word reigns". Duke Magazine. 93 (3). May–June 2007. Archived from the original on October 9, 2007. Retrieved November 13, 2007.
18. ^ a b Kimball, Roger (October 25, 1999). "In Defense of Facts". National Review. 51 (20): 44–45.
19. ^ Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (September 30, 1999). "'Dutch': A Guy Who Wasn't There Meets the Guy Who Was". The New York Times Book Review.
20. ^ Didion, Joan (January 4, 2022). "'The Day Was Hot and Still ...'". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved July 15, 2023.

## External links

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* The Hollow Man – New York Times review of Dutch
* Washington Monthly review by Jonathan Alter
* BusinessWeek Online review by Douglas Harbrecht
* Presentation by Morris on Dutch at the American Enterprise Institute, December 7, 1998
* Presentation by Morris on Dutch at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, October 12, 1999
* Booknotes interview with Morris on Dutch, December 5, 1999.

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