cover image I, J.F.K.

I, J.F.K.

Robert Mayer. Dutton Books, $18.95 (262pp) ISBN 978-0-525-24776-0

In this satirical debunking of the so-called Camelot presidency, John F. Kennedy, whose purported beyond-the-grave reminiscences are the substance of the text, emerges as a cynical, sex-obsessed egomaniac who took the American people for a ride. JFK says things like, ``The simple fact is, I was telegenic,'' while his brother Bobby defends Joseph McCarthy's complexity of character, and Lyndon Johnson, commenting on the 1960 election, tells JFK: ``You used me, and tossed me aside like a whore.'' Some of this is genuinely witty, as when JFK, about to meet Khrushchev, cracks: ``It was like stepping into the pages of Orwell, for a chat with the head pig.'' But for the most part, Mayer ( Superfolks ; The Dreams of Ada ) recycles gossip and advances his own semi-surreal versions of events such as Marilyn Monroe's murder and JFK's assassination in a racy, sometimes amusing but highly forgettable fantasy. Joseph Kennedy, Lindbergh, Aristotle Onassis and ``Jackie Zero,'' Martin Luther King, Hoover, Hoffa and assorted mobsters make appearances. (July)