Customer Reviews

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

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

 

 

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.

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."

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: [...]

If you're a fan of David Foster Wallace's nonfiction, I think this is probably a must-read. It faces squarely off against his fascinations with issues of ethics and authenticity, and shows him in a troubled frame of mind. I can't say how much editing was done recently, but this is technically the last book he published before his death so it's also got that grim recommendation.

By turns it's uncomfortably funny and fascinating, and it paints a portrait of McCain that's remarkably insightful in the light of the recent campaign. It's DFW at the top of his nonfiction game.

Don't expect a boring analysis of the McCain campaign trial. Wallace is neither supporting or opposing the McCain campaign of 2000.

It's a sociological analysis of exactly what occurs when a politician suddenly has a real shot at winning an election. How his campaign changes, how he himself changes, how his promise changes.

It is a brilliant book, my favorite from Wallace. It's a short read, and you'll never look at politics the same way again.

...this essay, wonderful as it is, is a little outdated and, now, some of the things that DFW has written about mccain are patently false (eg: being locked in a box in the hanoi hilton for 4 years. yes, he was there, but he was not kept "in a box" every single day, as dfw says.) it's interesting, too, that this was written on assignment for rolling stone back in '99. contrast this with Mat Taibbi's RS article of this year, "mccain: the fake maverick."

that said, i love, love, love DFW's writing, and am so sad he is gone. purchase "consider the lobster" to get a more fully-rounded DFW experience. this essay is included there.

I have yet to read the book, but the condition looks pretty much brand new and it arrive during the predicted time. It was also reasonably priced.