Mizner, David

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Mizner, David

PERSONAL:

Born in Waterville, ME; married Miri Navasky; children: Milo. Education: Attended Tufts University and Columbia University.

ADDRESSES:

Home— New York, NY. E-mail— [email protected].

CAREER:

Activist and author. Has worked for Human Rights First and the Knight Case Studies Initiative at Columbia University's School of Journalism; former researcher for People for the American Way, Washington, DC, and for the Vera Institute of Justice.

WRITINGS:

Political Animal(novel), Soho Press (New York, NY), 2004.

Hartsburg, USA(novel), Bloomsbury USA (New York, NY), 2007.

Also author of the insidious beast Web log. Contributor to periodicals, including the Los Angeles Times, Prison Life, and Church and State.

SIDELIGHTS:

David Mizner is a novelist who has drawn on his earlier background working in politics to write fiction featuring the inner world of the U.S. government. Although Mizner went to journalism school, he noted in an interview on the Things I'd Rather Be Doing Web site: "I've always liked the idea of journalism more than the actuality," adding, "I discovered that I don't like to call people on the phone." The author went on to explain how he began to write his first novel: "My dad got sick in '98 and I moved home to help care of him, to help him die, and wanted a big project, so I started writing my first novel,Political Animal. That's one great thing about fiction: all you have to do is do it. Just open up a file. It suits me."

Political Animal was called "consistently funny and sometimes hilarious," by New York Observer contributor Kevin Canfield, who added: "Even better, this briskly paced debut does an admirable job of grappling with the political complexities of race and the death penalty and the problems facing the American left." The story revolves around the candidacy of Arnie Schecter for the New York Senate, but it features Schecter's speechwriter, Ben Bergin. Although Ben believes in "Schecter the Protector" and his liberal viewpoints, he is much more focused on fellow campaign worker Calliope Berkowitz. However, his infatuation with Calli is not the only thing getting in the way of his work. Ben is drinking and partying heavily at night, with the drinking starting to continue into the day. While Calli flirts with Ben, he seems to be on a path to self-destruction.

Commenting on his book for the Tufts Magazine Web site, Mizner observed that films and novels featuring politics are usually "Capra-esque fables in which people struggle against not-such-long odds to do the right thing or dystopian laments in which people never do the right thing." The author continued: "I had a vague sense that I wanted to write a novel that was neither," adding that he tried to present a "more realistic" story. According to reviewers, Mizner largely succeeded in his goal. Political Animal received widespread praise. A Kirkus Reviews contributor called it "a jolting tour through the lower depths of the political machine so often shrouded in darkness and rhetoric." Another reviewer, writing in Publishers Weekly, enjoyed the novel's "cutting commentary on New York politics, its attendant disillusionments and its diverse supporting cast."

Mizner focuses on a race for the school board in Hartsburg, Ohio, in his second novel,Hartsburg, USA. The fictional town was once a place where pundits and politicians looked to the voters to predict nationwide elections. Now a large evangelical church has skewed the town's political balance, causing a deep division among the town's inhabitants. Running for the school board is church member Bevy Baer, a right-wing conservative who favors prayer in schools and tough discipline. Her opponent, the liberal Wallace Cromier, is a columnist for the small town's newspaper but was once a Hollywood screenwriter. The story, which is told from the perspective of the two candidates, includes numerous other characters, such as a one-time star high-school football player whose life has gone downhill since graduating and a woman with a deformity that makes the townspeople wary.

"The race is a loose retelling of the 2004 presidential election," Mizner explained in an interview on the Daily Kos Web site, adding that "the novel goes very directly at the blue-state, red-state divide; it both examines the so-called culture war and makes fun of it." The author continued: "The campaign provides the framework and much of the dramatic tension, but the book is mostly about these two characters, their families, and their friends. And the War in Iraq is the backdrop, ever present yet largely invisible."

Some critics, however, saw the novel's theme differently than the author. Writing on the Forbes Magazine Web site, Michael Maiello stated: "It's really not so much about the battle between left and right but about the tension between the dual American desires for an exciting, cosmopolitan life and a bedrock of stability," adding that "Mizner's novel serves up the perfect allegory." Mizner's novel was also favorably received by other critics. Commenting that the novel "could have been a slapstick satire," a Kirkus Reviews contributor observed that the author "is more concerned with illuminating them than with making fun of them." A Publishers Weekly contributor concluded: "The novel ends up being much more sad than funny, more straight that satirical, and it offers an apt examination of divides that aren't as cut and dried as red vs. blue."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, August, 2004, Carol Haggas, review of Political Animal, p. 1901.

Entertainment Weekly, September 10, 2004, Gilbert Cruz, review of Political Animal, p. 168; August 24, 2007, Gilbert Cruz, review of Hartsburg, USA, p. 137.

Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2004, review of Political Animal, p. 652; June 1, 2007, review of Hartsburg, USA.

Library Journal, April 1, 2007, Joanna M. Burkhardt, review of Hartsburg, USA, p. 83.

New York Observer, October 11, 2004, Kevin Canfield, "Young Politicos in Love: Flip-Flops along Spin Alley," review of Political Animal.

Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram Online, September 23, 2007, John Robinson, "Taking a Dive into the Blood Sport of Local Politics," review of Political Animal.

Publishers Weekly, June 28, 2004, review of Political Animal, p. 30; April 9, 2007, review of Hartsburg, USA, p. 27.