Vaughn Meader Is Screwed, Again

Jason Anderson’s debut novel, Showbiz, is a whimsical roman à clef involving fictionalized characters and events inspired by the Kennedy era. The story follows journalist Nathan Grant, who lives in roughly our present day, as he prepares a profile of Jimmy Wynn, a character based on the 1960s stand-up comic Vaughn Meader. A popular impersonator of John F. Kennedy, Meader, who passed away in October 2004, achieved reflected fame from the subject of his routine. (Kennedy reportedly greeted a group from the Democratic National Committee by saying “Vaughn Meader was busy tonight so I came myself.”) Nevertheless, his status did not survive the president’s assassination. Nobody wanted Meader’s schtick after Dallas, and he spiralled into oblivion and heroin addiction, appearing in the 1974 movie Linda Lovelace for President and later on a Rich Little record as if to italicize his own decline.

Vaughn Meader makes a great case study of pop...