Synopses & Reviews
We all relish a good scandal—the larger the figure (governor, judge) and more shocking the particulars (diapers, cigars)—the better. But why
do people feel compelled to act out their tangled psychodramas on the national stage, and why do we so enjoy watching them, hurling our condemnations while savoring every lurid detail?
With "pointed daggers of prose" (The New Yorker), Laura Kipnis examines contemporary downfall sagas to lay bare the American psyche: what we desire, what we punish, and what we disavow. She delivers virtuoso analyses of four paradigmatic cases: a lovelorn astronaut, an unhinged judge, a venomous whistleblower, and an over-imaginative memoirist. The motifs are classic—revenge, betrayal, ambition, madness—though the pitfalls are ones we all negotiate daily. After all, every one of us is a potential scandal in the making: failed self-knowledge and colossal self-deception—the necessary ingredients—are our collective plight. In How to Become a Scandal, bad behavior is the entry point for a brilliant cultural romp as well as an anti-civics lesson. "Shove your rules," says scandal, and no doubt every upright citizen, deep within, cheers the transgression—as long as it's someone else's head on the block.
Review
"Those who think they are playing to an unseen audience often find that they are abruptly on stage without a stitch. Why do they need this validation and why do we so much enjoy providing it? In How to Become a Scandal Laura Kipnis investigates the dirty habits of the heart and illuminates the secret places of the psyche, speculating brilliantly and amusingly about the trouble to which people will go to get themselves exposed." Christopher Hitchens, author of Hitch-22
Review
"A brilliant original analysis of our culture's addiction to scandal. Kipnis illuminates her subjects with such wit and perception that she raises the art of critical writing to new heights. She makes you laugh and think. Brava." Patricia Bosworth, author of Marlon Brando
Review
"'Know thyself,' the ancient Greeks commanded. Far easier commanded than obeyed, as Laura Kipnis demonstrates in this incisive, hilarious, and, er, penetrating look at four modern American scandals, all of which involve self-destructiveness of the highest and most bewildering order. In ways as delicious and disturbing as the transgressions themselves, she tells us why we love this stuff." Daniel Menaker, author of A Good Talk
Review
"Read Laura Kipnis's new book if you're hoping to become the object of a media feeding frenzy. Read it if you're hoping to avoid one. Either way, it will leave you delighted and ten times smarter about the workings of our media-celebrity complex. This is cultural criticism of a high order." Jacob Weisberg, author of The Bush Tragedy
Review
"An extremely smart, funny, acid, and beautifully written meditation on a profound truth that we all try desperately to ignore: we are deeply divided animals, and we are drawn to the creation of our own demise." David Shields, author of Reality Hunger
Review
“Kipnis delivers all the lurid, lowbrow pleasures of scandal-voyeurism redeemed by the Apollonian grace of wit and intellect.” Jim Holt, author of Stop Me If You've Heard This
Review
"Step right up, take a seat, every one of them front row. Ah, here's our cast now: A lovelorn astronaut driving cross-country wearing a diaper, thus avoiding pit-stops on her way to pepper-spray her former lover's girlfriend. Here's lisping literary fabulist James Frey, who basked in the commercial sunshine that is Oprah and was later pinned under her magnifying glass in what might be the greatest episode of Schadenfreude TV ever. And what pantheon of humiliation is complete without Linda Tripp, Monica Lewinsky's double-crossing, wire-wearing, dry-clean-averse gal pal, whose atrocious behavior was, as Laura Kipnis points out in her highly entertaining and wickedly smart How to Become a Scandal: Adventures in Bad Behavior, matched by her remarkable physical ugliness." Laura Kipnis, The Oregonian (Read the entire )
Synopsis
We all relish a good scandal the larger the figure (governor, judge) and more shocking the particulars (diapers, cigars) the better. But why
do people feel compelled to act out their tangled psychodramas on the national stage, and why do we so enjoy watching them, hurling our condemnations while savoring every lurid detail?
With "pointed daggers of prose" (The New Yorker), Laura Kipnis examines contemporary downfall sagas to lay bare the American psyche: what we desire, what we punish, and what we disavow. She delivers virtuoso analyses of four paradigmatic cases: a lovelorn astronaut, an unhinged judge, a venomous whistleblower, and an over-imaginative memoirist. The motifs are classic revenge, betrayal, ambition, madness though the pitfalls are ones we all negotiate daily. After all, every one of us is a potential scandal in the making: failed self-knowledge and colossal self-deception the necessary ingredients are our collective plight.
In How to Become a Scandal, bad behavior is the entry point for a brilliant cultural romp as well as an anti-civics lesson. "Shove your rules," says scandal, and no doubt every upright citizen, deep within, cheers the transgression as long as it's someone else's head on the block.
Synopsis
A
New York Times Book Review Editors Choice
We all relish a good scandal. Why do people feel compelled to act out their tangled psychodramas on the national stage, and why do we so enjoy watching them? The motifs are classic—revenge, betrayal, ambition, madness—though the pitfalls are ones we all negotiate daily. After all, every one of us is a potential scandal in the making: failed self-knowledge and colossal self-deception—the necessary ingredients—are our collective plight. How to Become a Scandal is “an extremely smart, funny, acid, and beautifully written meditation on a scary truth that we all try desperately to ignore” (David Shields, author of Reality Hunger: A Manifesto).
About the Author
Laura Kipnis is the author of Against Love: A Polemic and The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability, which have been translated into fifteen languages. She is a professor in the Department of Radio/TV/Film at Northwestern University, has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, and has contributed to Slate, Harper's, The Nation, and The New York Times Magazine. She lives in New York and Chicago.