McCain's Promise: Aboard the Straight Talk Express with John McCain and a Whole Bunch of Actual Reporters, Thinking About Hope [Paperback]

David Foster Wallace (Author), Jacob Weisberg (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2008

Is John McCain "For Real?"

That's the question David Foster Wallace set out to explore when he first climbed aboard Senator McCain's campaign caravan in February 2000. It was a moment when Mccain was increasingly perceived as a harbinger of change, the anticandidate whose goal was "to inspire young Americans to devote themselves to causes greater than their own self-interest." And many young Americans were beginning to take notice.

To get at "something riveting and unspinnable and true" about John Mccain, Wallace finds he must pierce the smoke screen of spin doctors and media manipulators. And he succeeds-in a characteristically potent blast of journalistic brio that not only captures the lunatic rough-and-tumble of a presidential campaign but also delivers a compelling inquiry into John McCain himself: the senator, the POW, the campaign finance reformer, the candidate, the man.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Wallace's inexperience as a campaign reporter is an advantage here, leading to unvarnished insights." (Miami Herald Ariel Gonzalez )

"Bracingly insightful." (New York Times Book Review Pankaj Mishra )

"Wallace conveys a geniuine disillusionment at the sham of the whole arrangement: the endless political posturing, the robotic news coverage...At the same time, he recognize's McCain's essential magnetism." (Los Angeles Time Book Review Steve Almond )

"Compelling...A patient and thoughtful meditation on what McCain's military past-specifically, his five-plus years as a prisoner of war-means about his moral fiber." (Atlanta Journal-Constitution Kevin Canfield )

About the Author

David Foster Wallace was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1962 and raised in Illinois, where he was a regionally ranked junior tennis player. He received bachelor of arts degrees in philosophy and English from Amherst College and wrote what would become his first novel, The Broom of the System, as his senior English thesis. He received a masters of fine arts from University of Arizona in 1987 and briefly pursued graduate work in philosophy at Harvard University. His second novel, Infinite Jest, was published in 1996. Wallace taught creative writing at Emerson College, Illinois State University, and Pomona College, and published the story collections Girl with Curious Hair, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, and Oblivion and the essay collections A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again and Consider the Lobster. He was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Whiting Writers' Award, and was appointed to the Usage Panel for The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. He died in 2008. His last novel, The Pale King, was published in 2011.


Jacob Weisberg is an editor of Slate magazine, a columnist for the Financial Times, and a frequent commentator on National Public Radio. His writings have also appeared in The New Republic, Vanity Fair, Newsweek, and the New York Times. His books include the bestselling Bushisms series and the 2008 bestseller The Bush Tragedy.

Product Details

• Paperback: 124 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books; 1st Back Bay Pbk. Ed edition (June 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316040533
• ISBN-13: 978-0316040532
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.4 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #311,440 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #5 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Nonfiction > Government > Elections
  • #7 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Reference > Writing > Journalism

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

108 of 121 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not a new book!, May 27, 2008

By 

taews (Irvine, CA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: McCain's Promise: Aboard the Straight Talk Express with John McCain and a Whole Bunch of Actual Reporters, Thinking About Hope (Paperback)

If you have read Consider the Lobster, you have already read this book! I feel very deceived to have bought it. This newly released book is a chapter from Consider the Lobster for which Wallace spent time with McCain's campaign bus in 2000! This is NOT about the current 2008 campaign. I'm extremely disappointed at the crass commercialism of the publisher and/or Wallace for re-releasing old stuff with a new name just to cash in on the current presidential campaign. I should have given it 1 star, but if someone has not read the piece already, he or she would enjoy this book.

48 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Important to know the context of this book was 2000, not 2008, September 13, 2008

By 

jubster "guitar funk" (Seattle) - See all my reviews

This review is from: McCain's Promise: Aboard the Straight Talk Express with John McCain and a Whole Bunch of Actual Reporters, Thinking About Hope (Paperback)

Given DFW's recent tragic death (and the election timing of this re-release), I'd imagine alot of folks may now discover this book. What Wallace wanted current readers understand about the context, he told the Wall Street Journal in an interview from June 2008. Here's the excerpt:

"The essay quite specifically concerns a couple weeks in February, 2000, and the situation of both McCain [and] national politics in those couple weeks. It is heavily context-dependent. And that context now seems a long, long, long time ago. McCain himself has obviously changed; his flipperoos and weaselings on Roe v. Wade, campaign finance, the toxicity of lobbyists, Iraq timetables, etc. are just some of what make him a less interesting, more depressing political figure now--for me, at least. It's all understandable, of course--he's the GOP nominee now, not an insurgent maverick. Understandable, but depressing. As part of the essay talks about, there's an enormous difference between running an insurgent Hail-Mary-type longshot campaign and being a viable candidate (it was right around New Hampshire in 2000 that McCain began to change from the former to the latter), and there are some deep, really rather troubling questions about whether serious honor and candor and principle remain possible for someone who wants to really maybe win. I wouldn't take back anything that got said in that essay, but I'd want a reader to keep the time and context very much in mind on every page."

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Originally from Consider the Lobster, September 16, 2008

By 

a. "devoted reader" (NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: McCain's Promise: Aboard the Straight Talk Express with John McCain and a Whole Bunch of Actual Reporters, Thinking About Hope (Paperback)

So if you have any interest in his other essays, read that book instead of this one. While this is not a bad essay, note the timing of its re-release during a year when McCain is running for the Presidency of the US. Note also that Wallace, recently deceased, had changed his opinion of McCain, as per an interview he gave in May 2008: [...]