November (Vintage) [Paperback]

David Mamet (Author)

Book Description

Series: Vintage | Publication Date: June 24, 2008

David Mamet's new Oval Office satire depicts one day in the life of a beleaguered American commander-in-chief. It's November in a Presidential election year, and incumbent Charles Smith's chances for reelection are looking grim. Approval ratings are down, his money's running out, and nuclear war might be imminent. Though his staff has thrown in the towel and his wife has begun to prepare for her post-White House life, Chuck isn't ready to give up just yet. Amidst the biggest fight of his political career, the President has to find time to pardon a couple of turkeys — saving them from the slaughter before Thanksgiving — and this simple PR event inspires Smith to risk it all in attempt to win back public support. With Mamet's characteristic no-holds-barred style, November is a scathingly hilarious take on the state of America today and the lengths to which people will go to win.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Hilarious. . . . The poetry of Mamet's pugnacity-with all its half notes of contempt, rage, and terror-really swings.” —The New Yorker“A savage farce. . . . Mamet is in contention for the title of America's best living playwright.” —The Guardian (London)“Maniacally funny. . . . It says something about November that its swift conclusion makes you yearn for a little more.” —Associated Press“Breezy. . . . Punch-line-packed.” —USA Today

About the Author

David Mamet is a dramatist, director, novelist, poet, and essayist. He has written the screenplays for more than twenty films, including Heist, Spartan, House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner, The Winslow Boy, Wag the Dog, and The Verdict. His more than twenty plays include Oleanna, The Cryptogram, Speed-the-Plow, American Buffalo, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Glengarry Glen Ross. Born in chicago in 1947, Mamet has taught at the Yale School of Drama, New York University, and Goddard College, and he lectures at the Atlantic Theater Company, of which he is a founding member.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (June 24, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307388808
• ISBN-13: 978-0307388803
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.4 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #425,279 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant farce, April 19, 2009

By 

Rob M. - See all my reviews

This review is from: November (Vintage) (Paperback)

And it is a farce, folks--let's remember that. Mamet wasn't looking to compete with O'Neill or Kushner, here. If you love brilliant comic writing and you're even a moderate Democrat, this work will leave you howling. It might be funniest play I've ever read.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Turkey with Dressing, September 1, 2008

By 

David Schweizer "Almawood" (Kansas, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: November (Vintage) (Paperback)

Mamet is wonderful. At his best, he is the best. "Novemeber" falls short of Mamet's greatest achievements. The author has always been funny; he is one of the funniest American dramatists around. These days he has been doing satire. He has the gift of dialog but I feel his inability to bring an idea to fruition leaves his recent work strangely incomplete. The patter is brilliant. This is, after all, "American Buffalo" in the Oval Office. This is Mamet's world. That he sees the American president as just another two-bit hustler is Mamet's key insight. I'm not sure he has another. This comic set-up more or less holds the play together. It works but it grows tiresome. At curtain one feels let down. For one thing, I am not sure that Mamet has fully developed his satire. He's got the patter down cold. One wants to hear more as one always wants to hear more Mamet. I fear, however, that one waits for the pay-off in vain. One problem is that his plotting around the President's decision not to pardon the nation's symbolic turkey unless he is paid a substantial amount of money is not enough to sustain a three-act play. The subplot of the blackmailing speech writer is a possible strong move, but I think Mamet got bored with the subject half-way through. Mamet does a great deal to make the thing sound with-it but in the end the play is bland. It is not relentless enough, crazy enough, not even angry enough. Mamet is coming close to losing his ability to create believable stories. Young Mamet believed in good and evil; now, there's a conflict! Nowadays, Mamet has convinced himself that we are all corrupt. He is probably right, but this insight creates a duller humor.

5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mamet Doing Some Bottom Fishing, June 28, 2008

By 

John F. Rooney - See all my reviews
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This review is from: November (Vintage) (Paperback)

On Sunday, January 13, 2008, I saw the Broadway production of "November" with Nathan Lane. He was very funny in the role of a wisecracking President about to lose an election. The play was hilarious, but it was a slight Mamet effort, marred, I think, by the extreme overuse of a four letter expletive in all of its forms. After a while I saw the audience cringing at the use of the word, not because they were prudes but because its repetitive use became boring, annoying, grating, abrasive. One of our leading playwrights surely could have used his wide vocabulary to put in some other words. The play is a farce, a satire, a gag festival, but it is not great. Without Nathan Lane I believe it would have soon perished. As of this date it has twenty more performances to run.
The script does not read particularly well, and had I not seen it, I think I would like it even less. I haven't seen a recent play in which so much time is spent in telephone conversations with unseen, unheard "characters." It was an old convention of Broadway comedies that happily disappeared. "Get me Joe on the phone" etc, etc. The structure of the play is out of the nineteen twenties and thirties comedy cliché genre, and let's hope it's not resurrected too often.
Any excuse is made for a gag, a laugh line. Elements of the plot: The President is supposed to pardon the Thanksgiving turkey, President Charles Smith will do anything to garner money for his campaign, his presidential library and himself, his lesbian speechwriter has returned from China with her partner after adopting a baby, an Indian tribe wants a casino on Martha's Vineyard, bird flu may have been brought back from China, the President has a team of secret agents who can render his enemies to Bulgaria, and so on.
It's low grade Mamet by way of Neil Simon and Sid Caesar. It's comic; it's crude; it's over the top. It's a cynical look at presidential politics with yuks, but little intelligent wit or irony. One of our finest playwrights is doing bottom fishing when he should be deep fishing. While England's Tom Stoppard is regaling us with epic achievement of "The Coast of Utopia," Mamet is serving up schlock.