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For the aspiring young reporter, the world of community newspapers seems like a
strange alternate universe. Instead of writing about international arms treaties, high
political scandal, or the film star du jour, you're stuck trying to find weighty words to
describe a Girl Scout bake sale, a city council zoning debate, or the local junior high's
production of Grease (with all the naughty stuff taken out, of course). Many a
J-school graduate has been quickly disillusioned upon assignment of their first puff piece
on a car dealership, supermarket, or real estate broker. They're what Akst calls the
"holy trinity" of community newspapers everywhere, and not coincidentally
usually the biggest advertisers.
But given the distance of time and experience, any Mencken wannabe will see the value of
community newspapers and covering the events and people with more of a direct influence on
one's life than what's going on across the state line or the nearest ocean. And it's that
kind of newspaper that's at the center of this novel, under the stewardship of former big
city reporter Terry Mathers, as editor, and his estranged wife Abigail, as publisher.
Their floundering weekly seems destined for failure, with the hottest local story being
the imminent takeover of the local department store by a Wal-Mart like national chain. But
when a respected local day care becomes the target of a wild string of rumors concerning
child abuse, it sets off a sense of hysteria in the town and its leading citizens --- and
their paper, The Webster Chronicle, is ground zero for the story.
Taken as strictly that, this book had the potential to be an insightful and compelling
novel. But Akst's weaknesses in plotting and characterization ultimately work against such
literary ambitions. To begin with, the allegations against the day care --- initially made
by town citizens with heavily compromised reputations of their own --- quickly escalate
from a spanking incident to child sex, child porn, ritualism, and Satanism, with only the
bizarre claims of three and four year olds --- highly suggested by the city's hired sexual
abuse advisor --- to back them up. Mathers must be the most gullible journalist in the
world, as he's all too eager to wholeheartedly accept the charges, in itself suspect since
he also happens to be sleeping with the advisor. But since Abigail is also enjoying wild
sex with the local department store owner...
The novel's biggest weakness, though, seems to lie with Akst's narrative indecision.
Hanging somewhere between straight narrative and broad satire (it's no coincidence that
some of the accused are also practicing Wiccans), it succeeds at neither. Having Terry's
dad as a disapproving, Walter Cronkite-like broadcast journalist superstar seems like a
blatant grab for another subplot. And Akst's character dialogue concerning child sexual
abuse often reads like a propagandist textbook usually seen only in the poorer novels of
Andrew Vachss. By the end, of course, Terry is repentant and abhorrent of the overheated
(and, of course, unfounded) scandal that he has helped create, but his instant conversion
rings false.
Thus, THE WEBSTER CHRONICLE takes a good and even tried idea for literature, and
ultimately fails to deliver. There are many good points about the book, particularly how
unsubstantiated gossip turns into truth, and how those who are not wholeheartedly with a
"good" cause then must be seen as against it (woe be to the citizen of Webster
not sporting a "Believe the Children" button). But overall, Akst's reach as an
author exceeds his grasp as a writer --- with the same outcome, whether he'd been writing
for The Webster Chronicle or The New York Times.
--- Reviewed by Bob Ruggiero
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