Synopses & Reviews
Widely celebrated for his political essays, Lewis Lapham is a satirist who belongs in the company of Ambrose Bierce, H.L. Mencken, and Mark Twain. Over the last twenty years he has experimented with satire in its several forms—as burlesque, pasquinade, invective, and deadpan jest.
This first assemblage of Lapham’s satires presents thirty pieces that hold their currency and humor against the tide of social and political change that has engulfed American society in recent times. He reduces to absurdity many of the topics of the day that are often treated portentiously: Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is retold to praise the virtues of remorseless greed; the hydrogen bomb is introduced as a solemn dinner guest who doesn’t play tennis or speak English; gene banks take the form of well-trained pigs that accompany their wealthy owners in the first-class cabins of transatlantic jets.
Review
"Without doubt our greatest satirist, elegant, honorable, learned and fair. I love reading him." —Kurt Vonnegut
"Lewis Lapham—born of Mark Twain and H.L. Mencken—is the most provocative and engaging essayist in the country." —George Plimpton
"One of the last liberal thinkers, a man of elegant humor. Should he wander onto the premises of Fox TV, he’d surely be shot down like a dog." —Liz Smith
"Lapham’s indignation is ecumenical, his scorn spread as smoothly as butter from left to right and north to south across the face of contemporary America." —The Boston Globe
About the Author
Lewis Lapham is the editor of
Lapham’s Quarterly. Formerly the editor of
Harper’s Magazine, he is the author of several books, including
Money and Class in America,
Theater of War (The New Press),
Gag Rule, and
Pretensions to Empire (The New Press). He lives in New York City.
Table of Contents
Christmas Carol -- The last Hohenzollern -- Philosopher kings -- Wall painting -- Capitalist tool -- Back to school -- Balzac's garret -- Traveler's tale -- Tower of Babel --The spring shows -- Sky writing -- Jefferson on toast --A man and his pig -- Italian opera -- Eyebrow pencils -- Asset management -- Natural selection -- Fatted calf -- Mixed media -- Performance art -- Potomac fever -- Hugo, mon amour -- Tremendous trifles -- Conventional wisdom -- Hide-and-go-seek -- Shadowboxing -- Compass bearings -- When in Rome -- Curtain calls -- Ars, Longa, Vita Brevis.