About M C Lewis

By nature many writers have a difficult time with the idea of promoting their work and themselves and this writer is no different.  I doubt that you are interested in learning how precocious I was or what books I read as a child. What I would like you to know is some background on the books I have written. As I launch this website, I hope very much that my work will find an audience, but I know it may not be for everyone. While I want to coax you into reading Spin Doctor, and want you to love it, I also want you to have an idea about whether it may be for you.  

Spin Doctor is not Political--it is about politics.  Some people want a message book. But Spin Doctor is an entertainment. It has drama and a story, characters and humor. So it isn’t a polemic.

I love thrillers, but it is not a thriller. I am well aware that I could have placed a bomb in the motorcade, or perhaps put the President’s grandchild in jeopardy. Books about evil corporations,  conniving generals/staff/vice presidents/first ladies--These can be a fun read, but not what I want to write.  

Also, it isn’t a tell-all. Folks who want to read a tell-all usually have a view of Washington that is both cynical and naïve at the same time. They want to know all the dirty little secrets of the powerful, to know that they are not what they seem. They are cynical, believe that all are corrupt and perhaps that makes them naïve also. It is naïve to think of people in such one dimensional, superficial way.

What interests me about politics and Washington is the real. You know that song that Willam Shatner, aka James J. Kirk, sings in his act, which ends with:

But I eat and sleep and breathe and bleed and feel
Sorry to disappoint you
But I'm real

It turns out, politicians are real, too. Some of them may be fundamentally evil, but really, you know that is a gross exaggeration for almost all of them. They are no better or worse than the folks who elect them, for the most part. The people I worked with on the Hill or in the White House were not different than those I ran into in other walks of life. I worked in the highest places for some years and that is the thing I learned: these are real people, no better or worse than people everywhere. But it was a pressure cooker, to use an outdated analogy, and that can certainly impact human behavior.

When I worked at the White House, and after, I used to hate it when people would ask, “What’s it like?”  I could never convey it in a sentence or two. There is an ambience of power. The pace, the pressure… This drama is much more subtle and I think more interesting.

In writing this book, it took some time to come up with issues that were topical and timely but that would not curdle before I could push the publish button. But I am not trying to teach you anything. I just want you to come along for the ride, a digital staycation to Washington DC and the surrounding area.

 If you want to get philosophical, that’s your business.