SOURCE: Parry, Sally E. Review of Dewey Defeats Truman, by Thomas Mallon. Review of Contemporary Fiction 17, no. 3 (fall 1997): 246-47.

In the following review, Parry discusses Mallon's perception and portrayal of historical events in Dewey Defeats Truman.

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 [Dewey Defeats Truman].

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...