Synopses & Reviews
From the critic who knows music and culture like no other, a fascinating look at two outsiders who epitomize America's fractured self-image
In June of 1992, when all polls showed Bill Clinton didn't have a chance, he took his saxophone onto the Arsenio Hall Show, put on dark glasses, and blew "Heartbreak Hotel." Greil Marcus, one of America's most imaginative and insightful critics, was the first to name this as the moment that turned Clinton's campaign around--and to make sense of why.
In Double Trouble, drawing on pieces he published from 1992 to 2000, Marcus explores the remarkable and illuminating kinship between Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley. In a cultural landscape where ideals and choices are increasingly compromised and commodified, the constantly mutating representations of Clinton and Elvis embody the American struggle over purity and corruption, fear and desire. Focusing as well on Hillary Clinton, Nirvana, Sinéad O'Connor, Andy Warhol, Roger Clinton, and especially Bob Dylan, Marcus pursues the question of how culture is made and how, through culture, people remake themselves. The result is a unique and essential book about the final decade of the twentieth century.
Review
"His strongest work in the quarter-century since he published his classic
Mystery Train . . . The finest rock critic around."—Adam Liptak,
The New York Observer"Marcus is probably the world's greatest living rock critic, and a virtuoso at projecting the rockin' way of knowledge into the larger world outside . . . A mythic cultural history of Slick Willie's presidency."—Charles Shaar Murray, The Independent (London)
"A collection of forty short essays brimming with savvy commentary, pithy anecdotes, trenchant observations, and rollicking satire . . . Offer[s] irresistibly offbeat glimpses into the zeitgeist of the last decade of the twentieth century."—Douglas Brinkley, The Los Angeles Times
Synopsis
Drawing on pieces published from 1992 to 2000, a noted music and culture critic draws comparison between Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley as two outsiders who embody the American struggle over purity and corruption, fear and desire. What results is a unique examination of American culture at the end of the 20th century. 7 photos.
Synopsis
In June of 1992, when all the polls showed that Bill Clinton didn't have a chance, he took his saxophone onto the Arsenio Hall show, put on dark glasses, and blew "Heartbreak Hotel." Greil Marcus, one of America's most imaginative and insightful popular culture critics, was the first to name this as the moment that turned Clinton's campaign around—and to make sense of why.
Double Trouble draws on articles Marcus published from 1992 to 2000 to explore the remarkable and illuminating kinship between Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley—and, moreover, to explore how culture is made and shared in today's America and how, through culture, people remake themselves.
Double Trouble is a unique and essential book about the final years of the twentieth century. This edition also includes a new essay Marcus wrote just before the 2000 presidential election: an eerily prescient piece that looks forward to two very different futures for ex-President Bill Clinton.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [231]-234) and index.
About the Author
Greil Marcus is the author of
Invisible Republic (0-8050-3393-9),
Dead Elvis,
Lipstick Traces, and
Mystery Train. His pieces have appeared in a wide range of publications, including
Artforum,
Interview,
The New Yorker,
The New York Times, and
Esquire. He will be teaching at Princeton and Berkeley in the Fall 2000.