P.S. The Autobiography of Paul Simon.

• Author: Simon, Roger
• Position: Review

P.S. The Autobiography of Paul Simon by Paul Simon Bonus Books, $24.95

WHEN PAUL SIMON WAS elected to the Illinois legislature at age 25 (having been a newspaper publisher since age 19), he went to the state historical library in Springfield and asked for a book on Abraham Lincoln's years as an Illinois legislator. Informed that no such book existed, Simon wrote one. P.S. The Autobiography of Paul Simon is his 18th book and, like Simon himself, it is straightforward, plain-spoken and written in an amiable style that can sometimes obscure a more potent message.

After 42 years in public office, including 10 years as a U.S. Representative, 12 as a U.S. Senator and one attempt to become president, Simon retired in 1996 with his reputation remarkably intact for being a liberal on social issues (his continuing stand against the death penalty officially makes him an Old Democrat), a fiscal conservative (he unsuccessfully led the fight for a balanced budget amendment), and a fighter against corruption.

His is a long story to tell and it takes a couple of hundred pages for him to leave the largely chronological recitation of his life and times and start taking Bill Clinton to task ("We are still too close to the Clinton presidency to make an evaluation. I hope it will end on a stronger note as he exits, but I am not optimistic."); the media (they pander to public taste, stress the trivial, are inattentive to international issues and are too cynical) and politicians ("Anyone in a major elected public office who tells you that he or she is not influenced by campaign contributions is either living in a dream world or is lying.").

Though the book begins in 1928 and goes on for seven decades, it does not attempt to offer a sweeping look at those years or make some over-arching point. Instead, Simon (who is no relation to me) offers a series of peeks into his life that are like pearls on a string: His minister father just two months after Pearl Harbor preaches a sermon against the government for imprisoning Japanese-Americans (and 13-year-old Paul is embarrassed by it). As a painfully young newspaper publisher in Troy, Ill., he stands up to a local businessman and hires the first Jew ever to live in the town. He exposes corruption at home and throughout the state. And there is this beautifully understated passage when Simon, representing a racially segregated district in Southern Illinois but working hard for civil rights legislation in the state...