Against the Fall of Night: a review of American Carnage. Copyright © 2019 by Tim Alberta HarperCollins “[Sarah Palin] was the early embodiment of some of the problems that would plague the party; mediocrity, anger, resentment, populism, proudly anti-intellectual, and increasingly bitter. And she was a rock star for it.” – Peter Wehner, veteran of …
Cari Mora Thomas Harris Copyright © Thomas Harris 2019 William Heinemann & Grand Central Publishing You read quickly through the first three chapters of Thomas Harris’ Cari Mora with a slight sense that, gripping and strange as the story begins, it’s a bit pedestrian, not quite on the level of Silence of the Lambs. Then …
Maggots in the Cantaloupe: A review of Outsider Stephen King, Scribner books copyright 2018, 560 pages. Terry Maitland, a teacher and little league coach in Oklahoma, is accused of raping, mutilating and killing an eleven year old boy. There are eyewitnesses, there are fingerprints, there is DNA evidence. The local cops are so sure he …
When I got my copy of La Belle Sauvage, I misread it as “La Belle Sausage.” The sad thing is the French word for sausage is saucisse. The words “La Belle” should have tipped me off that the title wasn’t in English. I’m from Canada. I’ve studied these things. I even lived right next door …
Elevation, a novel[la] Copyright © 2018 by Stephen King Illustrations © Mark Edward Geyer Scribner Readers will be irresistibly reminded of Thinner, a 1984 novel by Richard Bachman, in which the central character begins mysteriously losing weight. Bachman, of course, was the nom de slumming of Stephen King, and Thinner was a not-bad effort, one …
Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America Nancy MacLean Copyright 2107, Penguin Books. The libertarian biographer Charles K. Rowley once said of James McGill Buchanan that he was “perhaps the most hated and feared enemy of left-leaning economists throughout the world.” Not just economists. Buchanan is considered the …
Fear: Trump in the White House Bob Woodward Simon & Schuster September 2018 Yes, I know the title of the book is Fear, and I should have regarded that as fair warning. But FFS, I thought I would at least get through the Prologue without being reduced to mindless, numbing, existential terror! In a well-reported …
Rendezvous With Oblivion: Reports From a Sinking Society Thomas Frank 2018, Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company. “Social scientists have tried for more than a century to understand how class works.” The opening line of Thomas Frank’s “Rendezvous with Oblivion” sets the tone for the entire collection of essays. The theme is that a plutocratic …
Everything Trump Touches Dies by Rick Wilson, 2018 Simon and Schuster. Rick Wilson, Republican political consultant, gets barely a page into his book about the Trump “presidency” before making it fairly clear to the reader that he is not a fan. “Donald Trump, the avatar of our worst instincts and darkest desires as a nation, …
The Squirrel Seller Khalid rubbed the dusty and sunburned bridge of his nose and tried not to glare in disgust. The man before him was aged, and perhaps not quite right in the head. The Prophet taught the virtue of compassion for the aged and the infirm, even if they were assholes. This particular asshole …