Thirst for power

“Why are some bright people so stupid?” This question, posed by one of the key characters in William F. Buckley’s new novel, “The Rake,” alludes to a larger question examined in the work: Why do some smart people, seemingly destined for accomplishing great things in life, use their gifts and talents instead for self-aggrandizement, and by doing so enter into a devil’s bargain in which any action — however shady or even illegal — is allowed in their quest for power?

This question is as old as any in world literature, and Mr. Buckley takes this perennial theme into a setting, and into the lives of well-rounded characters, immediately recognizable to the modern reader.

“The Rake” concerns the life of a political lothario named Reuben Castle, and his is a simple story (as, at their root, are all crime stories). Reuben arises from a hardscrabble youth to become a rising star at his college in North Dakota during the late 1960s. He is blessed with intelligence, articulateness, good looks, immense ambition and that combination of charisma and slick cleverness that the half-educated mistake for genius.

Those who know the man firsthand tend to be either true believers, willing to defend him to the last ditch, or wary individuals who wouldn’t trust Reuben Castle with a burned-out match. If Faustus was willing to sell his soul to the Devil for sex, wealth and power, ruthless Reuben would settle for power alone, sensing rightly that the other two will follow naturally.

During his college years, while hurtling through leadership positions at his college newspaper and in student government, Reuben charms and seduces a young French-Canadian coed, Henrietta Leborcier. When the otherwise devout “Henri” discovers she’s pregnant, she convinces Reuben to journey with her to her hometown of Letellier, Manitoba, just across the border from North Dakota, and get married at the local Catholic church.

She then travels alone to France, where she lodges with relatives and has her child, a son named Justin. But long before Justin’s birth, Reuben abandons Henri. Despite his previous declarations of lifelong love, he has ambitions, and he justifies to himself that he has no obligation to Henri or their child. Reuben even forgets — or pretends to forget — that he and Henri were wed. For her part, the abandoned and ashamed Henri concocts the story that Justin was fathered by an American serviceman who was killed in Vietnam.

Flash-forward to 1991 and the run-up to the U.S. presidential elections. The junior senator from North Dakota, Reuben Castle is now a glowing star in the Democratic firmament. A Vietnam veteran, married to a former Miss America, and as charismatic as ever, he is considered a prime candidate for the Democratic nomination for president. All is in readiness for him to sweep through the election and attain the highest level of power the world can offer.

And then 21-year-old Justin, now a student at Notre Dame, becomes curious about his parentage. Snooping in his mother’s belongings one day, he chances upon a photo of young Reuben Castle — and recognizes him as the same political figure he saw recently on television. Justin’s search for answers takes him to Manitoba, to the same church at which his mother was married.

His quest for evidence of the marriage record attracts the attention of Reuben’s inner circle, who consult with their chief: How to proceed? For if the marriage record exists, Reuben’s chances for the presidency will vanish amid the resulting scandal and blood-in-the-water media coverage.

“Men may keep a sort of level of good,” wrote G.K. Chesterton’s immortal priest-detective, Father Brown, “but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil. That road goes down and down.” Reuben quietly gives his operatives the word: See that all evidence of his previous marriage disappears; what started out two decades earlier as a simple betrayal of integrity now descends a downward road of lies, arson and inadvertent (though indifferently countenanced) murder.

At least one reviewer has hinted that “The Rake” is something of a thinly disguised retelling of Bill Clinton’s odyssey. But it is not that. While there are echoes of episodes from the lives of several recognizable modern politicians, Mr. Buckley’s novel is in truth a fascinating depiction of the perennial temptation to acquire success and power by any means necessary. It is also, at its conclusion, a depiction of the redemptive quality of love and mercy married to justice.

The characters of Reuben, Henri, Justin and Priscilla Castle — Reuben’s high-maintenance second wife, her mind stuck forever on the fading runway-and-tiara glories of the long-ago Miss America pageant — are especially well-drawn, as is the portrait of Justin’s precocious college roommate, Allard.

Mr. Buckley creates a discernable parallel between the self-justifying machinations of Reuben Castle and the Allard’s own corrupt act of plagiarizing a portion of a college literature paper. When Justin, an earnest, likeable young man — as guileless as his father is slick — must confront the reality of his roommate’s dishonesty, he sees in a moment just how he must respond to the question of his own paternity.

Justin’s response may disappoint some readers, but this is Buckley’s plot, not ours, and it reflects the mind of a man who, after more than a half-century in the public arena, has thought long and profitably on the qualities that matter at the end of all things. While “The Rake” is not necessarily among the best of the author’s novels — suffering at some points from colorless, indistinct minor characters — it is a fascinating read: Fast-paced but thoughtful, racy yet tinged with the sacred, and filled with the cry for justice arising from injured trust while displaying the quality of mercy.

James E. Person Jr. is the author of the biographies “Russell Kirk: A Critical Biography of a Conservative Mind” (Madison Books) and “Earl Hamner: From Walton’s Mountain to Tomorrow” (Cumberland House).