What's the publishing story no one can stop talking about? The just-out Ronald Reagan bio-cum-memoir Dutch (Random House, $35), in which author Edmund Morris reinvents himself as a character interacting with the former President. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd dubbed the method ''Forrest Gump Biography.'' Syndicated op-ed scribe George Will sniffed, ''Fiction larded into a work purporting to be history is just fakery.'' The reviews have ranged from tepid to blistering. Here are highlights. -- Clarissa Cruz
Reviewer
Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal
Morris' Method Used in Review
Yes
Summary Statement
''Such a waste -- of history's time, the Reagans' faith, the writer's talent.''
Best Potshot
'''Edmund,' I said, 'I'm writing like a nut because I'm imitating you!'''
Hatchet Rating
[****]
[Reviewer]
Carolyn Alessio, Chicago Tribune [Morris' Method Used in Review]
No
[Summary Statement]
''Applied to Reagan, Morris' narrative method tends to mock both the subject and author.''
[Best Potshot]
''Blending fact and fiction...is like mixing ammonia and bleach.''
[Hatchet Rating]
[***]
[Reviewer]
Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
[Morris' Method Used in Review]
No
[Summary Statement]
''...under the guise of an authorized biography of Reagan we get a cloying, egocentric novel.''
[Best Potshot]
''...a bizarre, irresponsible and monstrously self-absorbed book...''
[Hatchet Rating]
[***]
[Reviewer]
John F. Stacks, TIME
[Morris' Method Used in Review]
Yes
[Summary Statement]
''...the fact/fiction bipolarity erodes some of the book's brilliance.''
[Best Potshot]
''This biography could have been called Zelig Meets Chauncey Gardner.''
[Hatchet Rating]
[*]
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