Synopses & Reviews
“We’re living in a sensitive age, Cuke, and I’m not altogether sure you’re fully attuned to it.” So says Irish-American politician Frank Skeffington—a cynical, corrupt 1950s mayor, and also an old-school gentleman who looks after the constituents of his New England city and enjoys their unwavering loyalty in return. But in our age of dynasties, mercurial social sensitivities, and politicians making love to the camera, Skeffington might as well be talking to us.
Not quite a roman á clef of notorious Boston mayor James Michael Curley, The Last Hurrah tells the story of Skeffington’s final campaign as witnessed through the eyes of his nephew, who learns a great deal about politics as he follows his uncle to fundraisers, wakes, and into smoke-filled rooms, ultimately coming—almost against his will—to admire the man. Adapted into a 1958 film starring Spencer Tracy and directed by John Ford (and which Curley tried to keep from being made), Edwin O’Connor’s opus reveals politics as it really is, and big cities as they really were. An expansive, humorous novel offering deep insight into the Irish-American experience and the ever-changing nature of the political machine, The Last Hurrah reveals political truths still true today: what the cameras capture is just the smiling face of the sometimes sordid business of giving the people what they want.
Review
“The best novel about American politics and the best novel about Irish-Americans I have ever read. . . . A superb job of vigorous, humorous writing—funny, engaging, and tolerantly mellow. . . . So good, so enormously readable, and so authoritatively persuasive.”
Review
“Here, after a century of trying, is the first successful Irish-American novel. . . . Probably the funniest American book in a decade.”
Review
“A resounding success—vigorous, amusing, and brilliantly observed.”
About the Author
Mike Stanton heads the investigative reporting team at
The Providence Journal, Rhode Islands leading newspaper. He has broken stories about mobsters, a crooked governor and a crooked Supreme Court justice, wayward cops and prosecutors, and sleazy bankers and developers. Stanton has also written for
The Washington Post, the
Columbia Journalism Review, and
The Boston Globe. He shared the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, exposing widespread corruption at the Rhode Island Supreme Court. In 1997, he received the Master Reporter Award, for career achievement, from the New England Society of Newspaper Editors. He has also won prizes from Investigative Reporters and Editors, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and the Associated Press. He is a graduate of Syracuse University and Northwestern Universitys Medill School of Journalism. Stanton lives in Rhode Island with his wife, Susan Hodgin, and their two children.
From the Hardcover edition.