Customer Reviews

Every Man a King: A Novel

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Bill Kauffman has written a beautiful book about a young man from western New York who leaves home for our nation's capital, where he gets mixed up with the 'conservative movement.' After he violates the most sacred rule of American political conversation, our hero returns in shame to his hometown. Shame fades, however, as he learns to live and love again on a human scale. In Kauffman's world we can come home again, and only by coming home can we come to our senses.

The damage done to our souls by the destruction of local community at the hands of our deracinated political and cultural elite has been the theme of many of Kauffman's superb essays but nowhere else has he matched the achievment of this novel. Our new sage of Batavia (heir to the tradition of fellow Batavian John Gardner) has produced an American masterpiece that deserves a place on bookshelves alongside the great works of contemporary American fiction. (Kauffman would probably prefer to stay on the shelves reserved for western New York writers but it would be stingy to deny the rest of our countrymen the pleasure of reading this great book).

You won't find a better satire of the culture of Washington, D.C. or a more moving portrait of the people of Western New York. I pray Kauffman is right--that we can go home again. It is the only hope for this perishing Republic.

Every Man a King begins as a hilarious --- but accurate -- satire of Washington, D.C.'s status quo. If you want to learn how things work in our government, this novel will tell you the truth. But then it takes an unexpected and enormously satisfying turn toward exploring the things that matter even more than politics: things like courage and loyalty, sacrifice and love. Bill Kauffman, a brilliant writer who often publishes in the Wall Street Journal and the Spectator, has hit a home run with this book.

I must be missing something. I bought this book based on the review given it by anothe reviewer. I found this book to be sophomoric. Listen to some of this tripe: "Fred had never abased himself...the martyred populist avatar, the paladin of the people" Then you get such nuggets as" John Huey saw ..rendered nugatory the verities that he learned at his grandpa's knee. The high and the mighty..did not rule by tyranny so much as by acquiesence." Or, finally, "Her thick tongue thrashed in his glossal roughhouse." Huh? This book should win "It was a dark and rainy night" Award.