My Search for Warren Harding is a picaresque novel by American writer Robert Plunket, originally published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1983[2]. It tells the humorous monologue of historian Elliot Weiner, who has found unlikely success researching the 29th president of the United States Warren G. Harding in the budding field of 'History as Gossip'. He schemes to secretly access letters written by the President to his mistress, Rebekah Kinney, who is still living in Los Angeles.
In 2009, The Guardian included My Search For Warren Harding in its list of 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read.[3] After falling out of print, the novel was republished in 2023 by New Directions with an introduction by Danzy Senna.[4]
Structure and themes
Structurally, My Search For Warren Harding is an autobiographical novel written in the first person by fictional historian Elliot Weiner. There are footnotes detailing grammatical disputes he had with his typist. Weiner also incudes footnotes with instructions on how to cook the various dishes he makes for dinner parties.
The novel alternates between Weiner's account of his interactions with the family of Harding mistress Rebekah Kinney, and his retelling of her memoir The Price of Love. Historical events are fictionalized to avoid a lawsuit from living members of the presidents family.[5]
Elliot Weiner is thought to be a closeted homosexual, oblivious to this fact himself.[5] He describes his fascination with Morris Dancing, and is more eager to write to his dance troupe than his girlfriend.
Writing
Plunket was inspired by Henry James's The Aspern Papers, a novel about the search for a dead poet's letters. He describes being "obsessed with Warren Harding and his soap opera of a life" and wanting to work this into a fictional narrative.[5]
In 1927 one of Harding's mistresses, Nan Britton, wrote a best selling autobiography about their affair titled The President's Daughter. Plunket fictionalized Britton as Rebekah Kinney.[5]
Influence
Seinfeld co-creator Larry David has listed My Search For Warren Harding as his favourite novel, and is known to recommend it to his staff writers.[5][4][2]Plunket claims that Elaine's iconic dancing comes from the novel.[4][2]
Weiner's girlfriend, Pam, is described dancing;
She is one of those people who ‘abandon’ themselves to the beat, clapping their hands over their head and emitting little yelps. To make matters worse, she studied modern dance in college and thus considers herself a Movement Expert. The thing she does—I can only describe them as Martha Graham routines. Her arms fly out into space, she makes sudden turns, then she half-squats, her head flung back in ecstasy.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
