Nixon Pat - Pat and Dick: the Nixons, an intimate portrait of a marriage

PRAISE FOR PAT AND DICK

A complicated picture of the Nixons... [a] largely sympathetic examination of one of Americas most mysterious political couples... the distance from Watergateand access to new personal documentsgives Pat and Dick a freshness to a much-considered chapter of history.

USA Today

Will Swifts sympathetic but rigorous examination of their marriage upended [my] long-held assumptions and left me deeply moved by the end. This president and his first lady left such a deep mark on their times and our history that it is important to come to understand, in reading Pat and Dick , the intricate personal drama that was going on behind the public upheavals.

Kate Buford, author of Burt Lancaster: An American Life

[A] fair-minded and thorough attempt to trace the long, jagged arc of the Nixons marriage... highly intelligent and far more sophisticated than the decades worth of quick takes... Swifts psychological paradigms serve him well.

The New York Times

The daunting challenge in writing a dual biography, particularly one about a president and First Lady, is composing the subjects in a comfortable balance, so that one does not eclipse the other. Swift meets this challenge brilliantly, and his Nixonsequally fascinating illuminate each other. The result is an insightful and engaging book.

Daniel Mark Epstein, author of The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage

The marriage of Richard and Pat Nixon undergoes sharp analysis by Swift... a model of well-documented revisionist history.

Kirkus (starred review)

Will Swifts deeply researched Pat and Dick... [is] balanced, treating matters like Watergate seriously, but also giving Nixon and his considerable achievements the credit they deserve.... Swift, a historian and psychologist who writes strong, clear prose, has no apparent ideological or political axes to grind. However, he doesnt hesitate to blow the whistle when he sees political piling-on.

The Washington Times

Swift has formed an absorbing depiction of Richard and Patricia Nixon.... He provides one of the best, if starkest, descriptions of Richard in love and politics.

Publishers Weekly

A joy. It is smart, thoughtful, poignant, and insightful. Will Swift sensitively renders two of the most caricatured and pilloried Americans of the late twentieth century in all their multi-dimensionality and complexity. Pat and Dick offers readers a guided tour of America, illuminating its politics, the American family, the White House, and the American home.

Gil Troy, author of Mr. and Mrs. President: From the Trumans to the Clintons

A useful insight into the Nixons as individuals and as partners.... Crack[s] wider the window into a marriage that has interested and puzzled this country for a long time and doubtless will continue to do so far longer.

The Washington Post

[Swift] gives us among the most nuanced portraits of these two complex individuals that we have yet seen... for all biography buffs, presidential history buffs, and those who study profiles of marriage.

Library Journal (starred review)

This intriguingly fresh and lucid portrait of these two epochal figures will be the standard reference work for many years.

Irwin Gellman, author of The Contender: Richard Nixon, The Congress Years 19461952

Presidential biographer Swift focuses on the spousal team of Pat and Dick Nixon, zeroing in on the incredibly strong marriage that sustained them through both personal and political triumphs and humiliations.... This intimate portrait into their marriage not only humanizes their carefully constructed and often maligned public image but also illuminates the strong ties that irrevocably bound the private couple.

Booklist

The most humanizing portrait of the Nixons were likely to have. Based on first-rate research, clear writing, and smart analysis, Pat and Dick triumphantly sets the historical record straight in these illuminating pages. Highly recommended.

Douglas Brinkley, author of Walter Cronkite

Will Swift has given us a true joint biography... in a highly readable narrative. We come to see how Pat Nixon had an impact on the administration that was ignored or not perceived during their White House years. The book also merits by giving serious analysis to their postWhite House years when there was a sense of redemption and even deeper love and understanding between them.

Carl Sferrazza Anthony, National First Ladies Library Historian and author of the two-volume First Ladies

Will Swifts deeply moving and nuanced portrait of the Nixon marriage sheds new lightand brings a fascinating layer of human emotionto the most controversial president of the 20th century. This is not just a book for scholars, but for anyone who has ever wondered about the real lives behind the scandal of the Nixon era.

Amanda Foreman, author of A World on Fire: Britains Crucial Role in the American Civil War

Thorough, fair-minded, and evidence-based. A compelling and eye-opening portrait. Swift gives us an incisive lens to understand the politics and psychology of late-20th-century society.

Evan Thomas, author of Ikes Bluff

With an eye for the telling detail, Will Swift deftly revises our view of the Nixon marriage, showing that the reserve the couple displayed in public masked a deep love and abiding respect.... Even readers who thought they fully understood Plastic Pat and Tricky Dick will be enlightened by Swifts perspective and delighted with his vivid descriptions.

Betty Boyd Caroli, author of First Ladies: From Martha Washington to Michelle Obama

Pat and Dick does exactly what a biography should do: show its subjects with empathy, insight, and critical acumen. We see Richard and Pat Nixon as they saw themselves, beleaguered and under-deserving of the bad press they often received.... Swift does not minimize their failings, especially their vindictive and petty efforts to punish their critics, but he also shows why the pressures of office made them behave, at times, with such animosity. In Pat and Dick the personal and political merge in a narrative that makes Swifts book one of the must-read biographies of the age.

Carl Rollyson, author of Amy Lowell Anew: A Biography

[This] excellent... biography... should be read by anyone interested in the Nixon presidency or more broadly about marriage in postwar American society.... [I]t humanizes Richard Nixon in a way that will surprise his detractors and clearly establishes the importance of Pat Nixon to him throughout his political career and beyond. This splendidly researched and very well written book is a pleasure to read.

Iwan Morgan, Commonwealth Fund Professor of American History at University College London and author of Nixon

In analyzing the Nixons marriage, Will Swift provides new insight into two of the most complex political actors of the twentieth century. Swift further erodes the Plastic Pat image, giving her a place of prominence beside, not behind, her husband.

Mary C. Brennan, author of Pat Nixon: Embattled First Lady

Will Swift brings his keen insights as a clinical psychologist and his considerable skills as an historian to explain the always fascinating and complex relationship between two very private public figures. Moreover, he perceptively describes their enduring relationship in the context of evolving attitudes toward marriage in postwar America.

Melvin Small, author of The Presidency of Richard Nixon

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