Warren G. Harding’s magnificent tomb in Marion, Ohio, graces the cover of Vincent Nicolosi’s novel, In The Fullness of Time.In The Fullness of Time; by Vincent Nicolosi; published by Fonthill Press, New York; 2009, 510 pages hardbound; $24.

Reviewed by Joseph Gresser

Vincent Nicolosi’s novel In The Fullness of Time is set in the sad days immediately following the death of John F. Kennedy in 1963.  To Tristan Tecumseh Hamilton, the book’s narrator, the president’s assassination brings back recollections of President Warren G. Harding, who died in office 40 years before the events in Dallas.

Hamilton, a 71-year-old widower, lives alone in his family house in Marion, Ohio.  The only son of a wealthy builder, he has an oddly formal manner (Mitzy von Leukel, his former fiancée, accuses him of wearing “starched underwear”) and often appears ineffective.

Some of this stems from being rejected for military service in World War I for having asthma, and living among returned war heroes.

Hamilton is a peripheral member of the “Ohio Gang,” a group of hometown friends whose efforts helped elect Harding president.  In ways that will seem eerily familiar to the reader, Harding had to battle rumors spread by ruthless opponents.  These included allegations that he was of African-American descent, a charge that was particularly potent at a time when the Ku Klux Klan was active throughout the U.S.

When the opportunity comes to battle Harding’s foes, Hamilton rises to the challenge, single-handedly undertaking a perilous mission that saves the Harding campaign from certain ruin.

A loyal and caring man, Hamilton is also one who seems to miss nearly everything of importance that happens around him.  For instance, he has a close bond with his lovely sister Adeline, but comes to realize that he knows almost nothing about her.

Like President Kennedy, Harding died after serving only three years in office, and Hamilton takes on the burden of ensuring the preservation of the late president’s memory.  That task is made difficult by the huge scandals that broke very soon after Harding’s death, scandals that Hamilton insists resulted from some of his appointees’ betrayal of the president’s trust rather than from any dishonesty on the president’s part.

As the head of the Harding Commemorative Society, Hamilton battles what he considers unscrupulous historians and organizes the construction of a magnificent mausoleum for Harding and his wife.

Hamilton is actually torn about Harding.  He regards his presidential record as magnificent, but considers the man, himself, to be despicable.  The president, it develops, is the one who broke up Hamilton’s engagement with the beautiful Ms. von Leukel, making her one of his mistresses.

Why then does Hamilton work so hard on his successful rival’s behalf?  In part because Harding’s accomplishments were worth remembering.  After signing treaties to end World War I, he convened the first disarmament conference in history.  He also worked for civil rights, help for veterans and for the eight-hour work day.

But there is also an element of pride in the deeds of a hometown boy.  Communities, like individuals, have heroes who are often chosen for their place of origin regardless of other manifestations of greatness.

The enthusiasm for President Calvin Coolidge, for instance, is largely a Vermont phenomenon.  In Mr. Nicolosi’s book, Harding’s widow, Flossie, refers to her husband’s successor as “that sour pickle of a man.”

Hamilton is a supporter of Harding just as he is a booster of Marion, a town that he, his father and his grandfather helped to build.  Ohio has sent the greatest number of its sons to the White House, and Hamilton and his neighbors see their support as a way to put their town on the map.

Mr. Nicolosi, like Tristan Hamilton, was born in Marion, Ohio.  He now lives in the East and summers in the Northeast Kingdom, but his book reveals his abiding affection for his hometown.

For, on a deep level, this novel is a portrait of a community poised on the brink of the kind of change that wiped out the individuality of countless towns around the nation.  It is telling that the novel does not follow Harding to Washington, and that its narrator remains firmly anchored in Marion.

Hamilton’s narration has an elegiac tone that grows organically from the sad days in which its action takes place.  It’s a tone that is also justified by the builder’s realization that his family’s work in creating a town full of beautiful, well-made homes, is soon to be erased.

Mr. Nicolosi’s book captures a slice of history that is fading in a world of chain restaurants, chain stores, and cookie cutter architecture.  Its human characters are well drawn and engrossing, but its true subject is the life cycle of the American small town.