Our Gang: (Starring Tricky and His Friends) [Paperback]

Philip Roth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2006

A ferocious political satire in the great tradition, "Our Gang" is Philip Roth's brilliantly indignant response to the phenomenon of Richard M. Nixon. In the character of Trick E. Dixon, Roth show us a man who outdoes the severest cynic, a peace-loving Quaker and believer in the sanctity of human life who doesn't have a problem with killing unarmed women and children in self-defence. A master politician with an honest sneer, he finds himself battling the Boy Scouts, declaring war on Pro-Pornography Denmark, all the time trusting in the basic indifference of the voting public.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Disturbing, logical...and very funny.... In short, a masterpiece."--"The New York Times Book Review
"
"Perhaps the funniest and most complex exercise in sustained political satire since Animal Farm." --" Newsweek

""Outrageously hilarious." --"Saturday Review of Books"

"Brilliant satire in the real Swift tradition." --Anthony Burgess

From the Inside Flap

A ferocious political satire in the great tradition, Our Gang is Philip Roth?s brilliantly indignant response to the phenomenon of Richard M. Nixon.

In the character of Trick E. Dixon, Roth shows us a man who outdoes the severest cynic, a peace-loving Quaker and believer in the sanctity of human life who doesn?t have a problem with killing unarmed women and children in self-defense. A master politician with an honest sneer, he finds himself battling the Boy Scouts, declaring war on Pro-Pornography Denmark, all the time trusting in the basic indifference of the voting public. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Vintage Books (October 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099389118
• ISBN-13: 978-0099389118
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,118,863 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

In the 1990s Philip Roth won America's four major literary awards in succession: the National Book Critics Circle Award for Patrimony (1991), the PEN/Faulkner Award for Operation Shylock (1993), the National Book Award for Sabbath's Theater (1995), and the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for American Pastoral (1997). He won the Ambassador Book Award of the English-Speaking Union for I Married a Communist (1998); in the same year he received the National Medal of Arts at the White House. Previously he won the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Counterlife (1986) and the National Book Award for his first book, Goodbye, Columbus (1959). In 2000 he published The Human Stain, concluding a trilogy that depicts the ideological ethos of postwar America. For The Human Stain Roth received his second PEN/Faulkner Award as well as Britain's W. H. Smith Award for the Best Book of the Year. In 2001 he received the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction, given every six years "for the entire work of the recipient." In 2005 The Plot Against America received the Society of American Historians Award for "the outstanding historical novel on an American theme for 2003--2004." In 2007 Roth received the PEN/Faulkner Award for Everyman.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars On The Comeback Trail, Or Tricky In Hell, January 31, 2005

By 

TommyEaseTheChill (Gettysburg) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Our Gang (Paperback)

I picked up this book at a library sale for ten cents. It was amazing! The satire is about much more than Richard Nixon's personal crimes. It's about how politicians use stock phrases and ideas to sell just about any form of cowardice and corruption. Make no mistake, Richard Nixon is not the only target here. Roth slashes the fatuous pieties of network news with tremendous effectiveness -- he really skewers the mock gravitas of talking heads like Tom and Dan and all the rest. His take on the media's "all is well" mentality has never been more timely. "Yet corruption there has been before, and the nation survives."

The book does have weak passages, like the whole Curt Flood abortion and Boy Scout murder routine, which drags on and on. And a lot of Roth's gibes at Tricky for being a "closet queer" are painfully homophobic and shallow.

But the final chapter, "On The Comeback Trail, or Tricky In Hell" is really a stand alone masterpiece. Tricky gives a speech which is utterly demonic and yet filled with Cold War rhetoric that would have been absolutely appropriate for any politician from Eisenhower to Reagan. "We cannot be triumphant over goodness with a strategy of simply holding the line."

Brilliant stuff!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Story of Tricky Dixon, February 28, 2008

By 

JMack (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Our Gang (Paperback)

There are those that have said this story is dated in their reviews. If we changed the names to reflect more contemporary leaders, is it not really just the same story today? While the story itself is a little overdone at points, the satire still brings clear echos of the Nixon Administration.

The idea that "Tricky Dixon" was a power hungry manipulator seems well accepted today. But when this book came out, the idea was still in its embryonic states. Essentially, Tricky manipulates the voting population with a pro-life stance that he takes to an extreme. As the chapter titles might imply, it causes an unexpected demise. Tricky's dastardly tricks along the way to the end seem preposeterous. Yet what is funny is generally not far from the truth. Those same sections run too long with some of the weaker points of humor, the fast pace is certain to keep readers engaged.

Though slight in length, those with knowledge of the Nixon Administration will enjoy this book. Even those with a certain degree of political insight that is less than conservative are likely to enjoy this satire.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Gang's all here - and gone, December 3, 2006

By 

Bomojaz (South Central PA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Our Gang: (Starring Tricky and His Friends) (Paperback)

Thirty-five years after the initial publication of Philip Roth's scathing satire on Richard Nixon (Trick E. Dixon in the book), one wonders how the book is received and perceived today. Is Nixon, the man and his presidency, still lodged enough in the public consciousness for Roth's hilarious bashings to make sense anymore? Other presidents, including Lincoln and Andrew Jackson among others, have been satirized, but those works have not lasted. My guess is that will probably be the fate of Roth's book, too. It's not a great book and goes on too long to remain potent to the end, but it is funny, and for anyone who's lived through the Nixon years, biting and right on. And it's not just Nixon who gets shafted; there are also John and Robert Charisma (Kennedy), Hubert Hollow (Humphrey), Lyin' B. Johnson, and Rev. Billy Cupcake (Graham), to name just a few, who also are satirized. Perhaps the funniest (and most clever) thing is the Preface that Roth added to editions published starting in 1973 (the so-called Watergate editions) where he apologizes to Nixon for writing the book before "evidence" of Nixon's downfall could possibly be known; Roth's tongue is so deeply lodged in his cheek that it must have been painful. A mere blip on the radar screen of Roth's works, the book is still a rollicking pie-in-the-face to Richard Nixon and his skewed take on the political scene.