Rating: 
Summary: ?
Review: Mr. Esterhaz wins my most cynical book of the year award. While I'm NO fan of President Clinton, the author doesn't appear to like anybody (except Jane Fonda of Hanoi fame). I don't think we need to know all the sleaze- manufactured or true- when there remain topics of critical importance to be explored such as East and now West Timor, AIDS, Sri Lanka, famine and the likes. Humor is always appreciated by this reader, but not when it is at the expense of others. The author does appear to have devoted considerable effort in writing this "tell all" tale and for effort he wins 1 star- besides there is no check box for zero stars. A waste of time and paper in what sounds to me to be this man's personal struggle at self- justification for an early life style that he now questions. Using my special alphabetized library filing system, I've filed this in my bookcase under 'R' (for rubbish).
Rating:
Summary: Grow up, Mr. Eszterhas
Review: I was disgusted by Mr. Clinton's actions in the White House, but feel that this author is still full of the 60's mess and has not yet grown up. Why not put some sense into this book and make something out of what Mr. Clinton did to abuse and debase the presidency as well as the Oval Office. I cannot finish this obscene mess of writing. Sorry I paid good money for it.
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Summary: P.T. Barnum was right.
Review: Most books inspire some kind of reaction in me -- amusement, delight, wonder, and sometimes anger or outrage. But the one major emotion that overpaid Hollywood screenwriter Joe Eszterhas has managed to invoke in me with his new book, "American Rhapsody", is annoyance.Annoyance -- and no, not the good kind of annoyance that you get from an informed social gadfly like the early Hunter S. Thompson (whose shadow looms so heavy over this book you'd need a battery of klieg lights to dispell it). It's the sort of annoyance that's borne of a conversation with an opinionated dolt -- the sort of person whose stodginess and self-absorbed prejudice and snide opinions give you a walloping headache over your dinner. But you're a gentleman, so you don't say anything. "Rhapsody" is a mess of a book, and what makes it all the more aggravating is the fact that it's a deliberate mess. It's a loose, disjointed, loud, and wholly irritating "meditation" on America, I guess, but it's mostly centered on such topics as the President's dalliances with a certain aide. If I hear one more whit about the President's penis or any of that whole tired farrago of idiocity, I will most certainly being screaming and not stop. Have you noticed that most of the people who claim to be writing about America only seem to be able to write about the most obvious, media-amplified and wholly grotesque sides of it, and that the people who write about the America that the rest of us experience get shunned? Probably because they don't have Eszterhas's sleaze/glamor factor to grease the rails for a 500,000 copy advance printing, that's why. None of this keeps Eszterhas from trying to make the subject his own (!) -- but the problem is that the subject was never his to begin with, and his attempts to co-opt it and make it part of his "Basic Instinct" brand of mental furniture. This isn't about Clinton, or America, or anything at all except Joe Eszterhas and his horribly bloated ego. (And if you've seen photos of the man, his ego isn't the only bloated thing about him: he makes Harry "Ain't It Cool News" Knowles look positively svelte.) Joe Eszterhas, to paraphrase someone writing about Norman Mailer, is the master of the single entendre. This is the proof.
Rating: 
Summary: An penetrating look at the underbelly of a scandal.
Review: Having been given American Rhapsody as a surprise gift, my feelings about reading it were so-so. After all, the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal has been a drag. And to have to continue to put up with our rock star President and his groupie wife/rock star wannabe is enough. Who needs this? Well, this book is worth it. Ten years from now, American Rhapsody will be on the book lists of many college level modern literature courses. It is raunchy and no-holds barred. After a slow start, perhaps a symptom of Monica Lewinsky fatigue by this reader, Esterhaus gains momentum as he paints an unflattering portrait of just about everyone he writes about, including many of the hollywood or rock and roll glamorous. On a deeper level, American Rhapsody comes across as a biker's unbiased narrative of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal and those it touched, going all the way back to Richard Nixon, and his revenge on us through the bag lady of sleaze. Added to this narrative are whispers, gossip and an intelligent assembly of information that never made it to the nightly news or the talking heads on tv. As the latter parts of the book were being approached, I kept wondering who the heroes would be, or what type of conclusion Esterhaus would leave on these events for history. On a simple level, he didn't. You won't find any conclusion or message or hero at the end of this story. What you do find, however, loud and clear are cynicism and a disallusionment not only with the enemies of the 60's generation -establishment mainline politicians - but with the now grown-up left wing heroes of that era and the break all the rules behavior of that generation. This is what we created, the new establishment. Coming from a conservative of this era, it is easy to see how American Rhapsody would be dismissed as a National Enquirer's sensationalistic coverage of people and events of our time. Coming from Joe Esterhaus, and his self-admitted behaviour and membership in the rock & roll generation, this book deserves a close look.
Rating:
Summary: pure genius!!
Review: I really hesitated before reading this book.What more could possibly be said regarding Monica,Bill,et al?But Joe Esterhas has written a great book.I would reccomend it to anyone-you won't be disappointed.Some may find it too graphic.(Obviously,they never read the Starr report.)But if you are interested in a book that tells it like it is,this is the only book you'll ever need to read about "Monicagate."
Rating: 
Summary: Monicagate from a Hollywood Babylon Perspective
Review: In a musical "rhapsody," various themes are arranged so that they hang together loosely to create an overall impression. The author does the same thing here with various threads of the Clinton presidency. As you read this book, you are sure to run across much you already know, and a lot that you don't know. Mr. Eszterhas' take on Monicagate is that it shows us how hung up we are on sex in this country, and we are not always willing to admit it, but in our heart of hearts... Thus in politics, as in the film industry, it's all about sex. So why only three stars? Because Mr. Eszterhas squanders a great opportunity to draw some conclusions from the 400-page mass of evidence he presents. Surely the implication that we are to surrender to our basest instincts is flawed. I felt a great disappointment that the book, with its clear liberal bias, ultimately went nowhere.
Rating: 
Summary: American Rhapsody
Review: Very in depth, More history about past presidents than I could have imagined. I couldn't put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Welcome to America. Here's your copy of American Rhapsody
Review: This is one of the funniest politcal skewers I've read in a long time. Eszterhas is as painful as a impacted wisdom tooth and perspicacious as your mother, when she accused you of smoking. The best parts are those he attributes to the "Twisted Little Man" within. His political/social analysis is set in the cultural framework that's about to overtake us. Like it or not, the sixties. If you doubt this, consider the fact that G.W. Bush, beloved of the conservatives, has confessed to doing coke. Hang on folks the ride has just begun. Get American Rhapsody and read it if you want to understand anything that's going on for the next thirty years.
Rating:
Summary: Oh What A Blurry Line
Review: Where does fact end and fiction begin? This is a question that could be appropriately asked of many works, perhpas none more so than in American Rhapsody. This is a very blurry line indeed. Let me begin by saying that I don't know what is true and what is not. The reality is that unless you actually live in the Hollywood or Washington world of these characters, you cannot really perform a literary polygraph to gain some insight. So it is up to the reader to choose whether to believe or not. That being said, there is alot in this book that will challenge even the most naive. There is not doubt that Bill Clinton made some critical mistakes that have marred his presidency along both legal and moral lines. But was he a cocaine addict? Was he a chronic philanderer whose porbographic tendencies rivaled John Holmes? Was the President of the United States nothing more than a sleazy hedonistic sex manic with a really good job? The answer is far less important than the question. What the author does here though is incredibly relevant to our day and age. For all of the hyperbole and dramatic allegations that ring from the pages, we are treated to a fundamental conclusion that is dead on. Bill Clinotn is a man. For too long, the President has enjoyed a super human image where those whol hold that office must be something more, something almost supernatural. Well folks, the truth is out and it ain't pretty. What this book tells us is what we have feared all along: The President is just like you and me. He lies and cheats and loves to love. He chases power and plays with the truth for personal advanatge. He has experimented with drugs, and maybe more, and in the end, he too stays up at night thinking about the co-worker down the hall who makes him hot. See, we wish our leader was what we are not. We wish he was immune to the temptations of real life. We wish he was, in a way, better than us. But, alas, this book makes it abundantly clear that he is not. A genius, yes. Gifted with the spoken word, absolutely. But more than human? On the contrary, too human. Perhaps we feel better when we believe our President is infallable, indestructable, even immortal. Perhaps, in the past we could remain in our self-induced childlike ignorance. No more. The curtain has been lifted, and there Bill sits, behind the controls, screaming, "Pay no attention to the man in the corner." This book rips off the sheets that have always covered our leaders from public viewing. What is revealed is nothing nore and nothing less than ourselves. In a way, we are greatly dissapointed, but in a way, we knew it all along.
Rating:
Summary: Buy the Unabridged Tapes: They're Hilarious!
Review: I began with a completely negative attitude toward Eszterhas, though I realize now it was based entirely on reading about him. I had shunned every single movie he'd written and been disgusted by what he stood for. When this book came out I hoped it would be panned and I felt smugly satisfied to read the very negative review in the NY Times. Even The Onion scoffed, calling it a "sewer" (I think). But I happened to hear him talking about his book on the radio show "Whadya Know?" At first I couldn't understand why Michael Feldman, the host of the show, let Eszterhas go on so long and dominate the conversation--Feldman usually constantly breaks in and says funny things. But he let Eszterhas have the floor. Gradually I realized, this man is really interesting--he can talk at length, speak his mind, be hilarious, satirical, incisive. This is exactly what I want to hear, even though I'm as over the Lewinsky affair as anyone and I'm not particularly eager to read a lot of sexy dirt. I decided to go for the tapes because I was intrigued by the list of actors and I didn't want to commit to reading what might be trash, but if I'd thought about it more--that Eszterhas writes for actors usually--and known that the book is largely a series of monologues, the choice of the tapes would have been obvious. Well, I can't stop listening. I've gone through the 12 tapes in 4 days. It got me through painting a room: now the walls are always going to remind me of Ken Starr (hilariously voiced by Bill Maher) and the trim of James Carville. There is never a dull sentence. It's just a nonstop rant, full of ideas and insights. I love the made up thoughts of the characters (Tom Wolfe's The Painted Word, one of my favorite books, also does that wonderfully). How does Starr think of himself? How does Clinton? There are so many great American characters here: Larry Flynt, Lee Atwater, Nixon. The phone conversations between Lewinsky and Tripp are so simultaneously idiotic (hair, clothes, men, men, men), sharp, and sad. Even if you want no more Lewinsky, you've got to hear the interior monologues of John McCain, Gore, and Bush: how do these folks think about their lives? Is Bush really what Eszterhas would have him? It's worth hearing and thinking about. Is Gore really this wistfully pathetic? I don't know, but I love hearing Eszterhas speculate on the subject. The inside Hollywood material is also exceedingly rich: Sharon Stone, Warren Beatty, and many many more. Overall, the impression of the book is a deeply disturbing feeling about the way men use women. I'm not predisposed to finding that funny. But I like really sharp dark humor, and that's what this is. So, congratualations to Eszterhas and to the terrific actors that make this the best book on tape I've ever experienced.
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