Kevin Williamson is an American Theodore Dalrymple, portraying in this group of essays the often sad human condition incisively, mordantly, and often hilariously. It is worth reading just for the great writing, but also for an insight into problematic people at all levels.
"They are from that great vast America whose people simultaneously have too much and too little." A line that pretty well sums it up. In describing his own home life as a child, "They didn't suffer from bad luck or lack of opportunity. Bad decisions and basic human failure put them where they were."
"Feeding such people the lie that their problems are mainly external in origin--that they are the victims of scheming elites, immigrants, black welfare malingerers, superabundantly fecund Mexicans, capitalism with Chinese characteristics, Walmart, Wall Street, their neighbors--is the political equivalent of selling them heroin. (And I have no doubt that it is mostly done for the same reason.)"
It is worth it if only to use such great terms as "troglofaunal" and "aptronym"
Writing about a porn star on whom a sex doll has been modeled: "I briefly consider asking her what it is like to be cast in high-quality plastic as a recreational masturbation aid, until I realize that the question is based on a rapidly vanishing distinction."
"to avoid the embarrassing possibility of being told to your face that you have made a request a prostitute is unwilling to fulfill."
"kettle corn, that weird, repulsive, caramel-coated, Dutch mutant popcorn varietal sold at state fairs and any place men in laced up pirate blouses gathered"
"I once rode a rickety bus up narrow, back-bent mountain roads into the the Himalayas and at the bottom of the gorge saw the irretrievable remains of an identical bus."
on protests: "a slow-motion hurricane of human angst and rage and boredom and more rage" and a "pageant of rage" at which "the cotton-candy guy does steady business. A fair profit, nothing more."
On a squatter village: "the scene is as bleak and ugly and oh-the-humanity as you'd expect" with one denizen wearing "cargo pants the color of sadness" where "there is a great deal of the painfully familiar passive language (and passive thinking) characteristic of the American underclass."
And his final essay on the god of passing time is beautiful and haunting. "we may even raise a glass to the god of passing time... He is not unwelcome. He does not wish us ill. He does not wish us anything at all." Worth reading every New Year's Eve.
The Kindle edition is good, except there is an error on page 101 ("S" LL COPS...")
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