The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Dewey Defeats Truman Thomas Mallon
Sally E. Parry

Thomas Mallon. Dewey Defeats Truman. Pantheon, 1997. 355 pp. $24.00.

Many people remember the hubris of Republicans in the fall of 1948 when they convinced, or thought they convinced, everyone that Thomas E. Dewey, the governor of New York, would be the next president of the United States. The shock of those Republicans—and of the Chicago Tribune in particular for printing up the premature headline “Dewey Defeats Truman”—is the impetus for Thomas Mallon’s new novel.
Mallon sets his narrative in Owosso, Michigan, Dewey’s real hometown, during the 1948 campaign, and uses the town’s attempts at capitalizing on this status as a way to explore not only class and political issues but also issues of sexuality and death, including the impact of the recently ended war on those whose lives have been permanently altered by it.
Owosso is a small town in search of a transcendent moment, which the residents assume will come when Dewey is elected president. The town’s “biggest industry is death” in the form of a casket manufacturer, and the local boosters would like to change the town’s image to something more related to the future. To this end, many of the townspeople feel that Dewey’s visiting the town prior to the election would be a sign of great things. The local politicians, including the president of Citizens for the Future, encourage Mrs. Dewey to invite her son back to his hometown, offering to hold a parade in his honor as well as to create a Dewey Walk along the riverbank. The Walk would be a permanent exhibit of the achievements of Dewey’s life, including his years as district attorney and governor, soft-pedaling the fact that most of his major activities took place far from his hometown.
The disparate voices of the novel—Republicans, Democrats, union members, disaffected adolescents, women mourning their war dead—are set against each other in such a way that they call into question our notions of history. The characters expect the historical moment of the presidential election to make a difference in their lives and the life of the town and while all of the characters are transformed in some way, neither Dewey’s expected win nor his loss has the impact that they anticipated. The townspeople grow and change despite, rather than because of, their brush with history. [Sally E. Parry]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction Dewey Defeats Truman Thomas Mallon Sally E. Parry Thomas Mallon. Dewey Defeats Truman. Pantheon, 1997. 355 pp. $24.00. Many people remember the hubris of Republicans in the fall of 1948 when they convinced, or thought they convinced, everyone that Thomas E. Dewey, the governor of New York, would be the next president of the United States. The shock of those Republicans—and of the Chicago Tribune in particular for printing up the premature headline “Dewey Defeats Truman”—is the impetus for Thomas Mallon’s new novel. Mallon sets his narrative in Owosso, Michigan, Dewey’s real hometown, during the 1948 campaign, and uses the town’s attempts at capitalizing on this status as a way to explore not only class and political issues but also issues of sexuality and death, including the impact of the recently ended war on those whose lives have been permanently altered by it. Owosso is a small town in search of a transcendent moment, which the residents assume will come when Dewey is elected president. The town’s “biggest industry is death” in the form of a casket manufacturer, and the local boosters would like to change the town’s image to something more related to the future. To this end, many of the townspeople feel that Dewey’s visiting the town prior to the election would be a sign of great things. The local politicians, including the president of Citizens for the Future, encourage Mrs. Dewey to invite her son back to his hometown, offering to hold a parade in his honor as well as to create a Dewey Walk along the riverbank. The Walk would be a permanent exhibit of the achievements of Dewey’s life, including his years as district attorney and governor, soft-pedaling the fact that most of his major activities took place far from his hometown. The disparate voices of the novel—Republicans, Democrats, union members, disaffected adolescents, women mourning their war dead—are set against each other in such a way that they call into question our notions of history. The characters expect the historical moment of the presidential election to make a difference in their lives and the life of the town and while all of the characters are transformed in some way, neither Dewey’s expected win nor his loss has the impact that they anticipated. The townspeople grow and change despite, rather than because of, their brush with history. [Sally E. Parry]

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