Updike's design for Memories of the Ford Administration is a collage of academic satire, historical narrative, and romantic comedy. These different kinds of fiction are held together by the firstperson narrator whose personality is revealed in each mode of the narrative.

Whether he is describing the young James Buchanan before the Civil War, or disclosing his own recent adventures at Wayward Junior College, the narrator typically confuses himself with history. This strategy not only allows Updike to offer comedy with each section of the novel, it also enables him to set up the many connections between history and his comic historian. The result is a novel that reminds us of two quite forgetable American presidents, while it also documents with comic brilliance the folly of political and romantic ambition.

Updike's technique includes a comic framework for Memories of the Ford Administration. The novel begins with a professional "From...