American Rhapsody

Rating:
Summary: Get ready to blow your mind...
Review: Excuse the pun. You'll see why when you read this book.

Man, this book is a fast-paced, hard-hitting, no holds barred, in-your-face account with raw, intimate, superbly described and researched details of events that took place in and around Washington (and Hollywood) prior to, during and after MonicaGate.

MonicaGate is the basis of this book, with snippets of the taped conversations between Tripp and Lewinsky at the beginning of each chapter. But Eszterhas has also given us his reflections on all the juicy, sordid goings-on in Hollywood & Washington as well as his "takes" on the "thoughts" of certain key figures involved in MonicaGate.

Which made me wonder throughout the book: How can he get away with this? Naming everyone's name, giving such intimate and often seemy information of what these people have done and said, exposing everyone and their mamas for the hypocritical, judgemental, pious peons they are. If he gets away with it, it must mean it's true and a lot of it must be documented somewhere or else Eszterhas would be sued to death! I kept asking myself, "Is this true?!? This can't be true!" It's hard to believe the things that go on in front of and behind closed doors! Which makes me say, everyone should read this book just to find out the truth of what went on during some of the most embarrassing incidents in modern American history.

In this book, Eszterhas has brilliantly connected and cross-referenced and revealed and exposed so many of the facts that it has your head reeling and keeps you wanting for more.

My gluttonous (sp?) appetite for more insider's knowledge of what goes on in the upper echelon of power in Washington and Hollywood only whetted.

Mr. Eszterhas, give us another one like this but with your assault rifles targeted on Hollywood. Now that would be delicious!

Rating:
Summary: Gonzo Journalism disguised as Literature
Review: For all the hype surrounding the celebrity revelations in "American Rhapsody", its biggest shock is the excellence of its writing. This book will not languish on a shelf; the pages turn themselves as the narrative gains its thrilling, roller-coaster momentum. Form follows function: Joe Eszterhas has produced a deleriously self-indulgent read about the most self-indulgent public figures of our time.

Eszterhas's language is more than bawdy, but thanks to characters like Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky and even Sharon Stone, so are the events it narrates. The minutiae of the Lewinsky scandal is made surprisingly fresh when written over with Eszterhas's super-snide commentary, as he parses the contents of the "Starr Report" to produce vivid character studies of all the players. It is soon difficult not to regard the actual historical players as mere sock-puppets, only capable of speaking freely through the mouth of Eszterhas.

Eszterhas has an extraordinary gift for appearing to voice the cynical subtext behind the most famous political utterances of the 1990s. Bill Clinton is Eszterhas's alter-ego, he believes, a fellow rock-n-roller who concealed just enough of his nature to make it to the White House. Nicknaming Linda Tripp and Lucienne Goldberg "The Ratwoman" and "The Bag Lady of Sleaze", Eszterhas plumbs the Clinton years for a whole new depth of black comedy. (Indeed, given Goldberg's wealth, I'm not even sure what "The Bag Lady of Sleaze" means, strictly speaking, but this new appelation locks in with the permanence of a well-chosen middle name.)

Reaching into Election 2000, Eszterhas's outrageous portrait of George W. Bush as a rattlesnake, Alpo-male version of his father is unforgettable. You will never see W. Bush the same, once you have seen "com-pay-ssionate conservative" printed as it is spoken, which is an act of startling subversiveness that none of the zillions of Campaign 2000 journalists dared to perform. A single, Texan-accented word becomes the keyhole through which we peer into W.'s "philosophy". As W. is fond of saying, perhaps we should "take him at his word".

Fact or fiction, in the final analysis? Who cares, when the reading is so diverting. Eszterhas taps into some deep poetic truths yielded from his close study of the American political scene. These poetic truths are larger than those yielded from any single historical text, hewn of majestic, marble fact. In a solitary volume, Eszterhas brings us all the essentials of the politics of our time.

Rating:
Summary: ?????
Review: I tend to vote Republican but refuse to align myself with the Right Wing or Moral Majority. I'm the guy in the middle that the candidates are really after. I say that as any review on this book should be tempered by the politics of the reader. JE is an avowed Democrat with socialist leanings. Read his most recent book "American Animal" to verify this. So it was surprising as I read the first third of this book that after an initial bow to Clinton as the Rock & Roll Prez, one of "us", he then seems to chastise him for his fatal flaws. This part of the book is interesting, engaging, but also somewhat repetitive. I still couldn't wait to read it my allotted hour a night.

But there is only so much you can talk about this subject and JE rambles on and on until he finally manages to really offend me. How? Well, I just finished his most recent book, "American Animal" an autobiography which I immensely enjoyed. Full of Hollywood stories. But reading this, I see that JE has included many of the stories I enjoyed from his autobiography in this political commentary/fantasy. So is he a writer with a message or is he just repeating his few stories to make a buck?

I don't know what to make of this book, thus my title. Did I enjoy some parts? Yes. Are there some interesting stories? Yes. But there is a lot of waste. It's like wandering thru a jungle with a machete looking for your trail. When you find it, it's worth the work. So maybe the only item I can add of interest came from reading this with some years of aging. JE takes on Arianna Huffington who he spends quite a bit of time describing her history to show what a bad person she is and how she climbed to the top while stepping on other people's faces. But would JE have included these chapters in this form if he had known that within a few years she would shift sides and now disavow her right wing leanings? I think not.

This is not a great book. But if you enjoy reading, maybe you will enjoy it.

Rating:
Summary: Take this book...please
Review: Joe Eszterhas certainly suffers from what the hippy/baby boomer generation are accused of suffering from: self-absorption. Good God, does he love his own opinions! He reminds me of Geraldo Rivera here: they both talk about all the women they used to sleep with, pretending to be ashamed and repentant, when the subtext the whole time screams, "Ain't I a stud!" They are pretending to be "confessing," when all they're doing is bragging. He takes Clinton to task, but he also accuses Americans of being too puritannical. (The French think we are too puritannical about Clinton. But then the French said, "In France, Watergate would have been forgotten in three days.") And read NO ONE LEFT TO LIE TO by Christopher Hitchens. You'll see that Linda Tripp saved Monica Lewinsky by taping her and urging her to save the blue dress. The Clinton White House was just starting on a smear campaign accusing Lewinsky of fantasizing it all, and stalking Clinton...when that blue dress appeared, that made the campaign stop before it started. It's absolute sacrilege to say so, But Linda Tripp saved Lewinsky's butt. Not the opinion in this book. Eszterhas reminds me of Norman Mailer. He's a dirty old man who pretends to be preoccupied with sex for intellectual reasons...when in fact he's just a lech. Read Harry Stein's HOW I ACCIDENTALLY JOINED THE RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY AND FOUND INNER PEACE before you read this one. It gives the best take on Clinton I've read yet.

Rating:
Summary: Sordid Story from the Screenwriter of Sleaze
Review: The first novel from the screenwriter of "Basic Instinct" and "Showgirls" is this lewd, lurid recounting of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair.

Most of the book is a seemingly endless recounting of L'Affair Clinton, including every story, fact, rumor, lie, and God knows what else. Apparently Eszterhas basically stole most of this information from other people's books (Gennifer Flowers, Monica Lewinsky, etc.). Very little of it is original. As I had feared, the author has nothing new to say about this saga. It's the same tabloid trash that you've heard a hundred times before. His only original contributions are composed of long imagined dialogues from Bill Clinton's penis, pornographic fantasies of Kenneth Starr, and similar failures at hilarity.

"American Rhapsody" is not a boring book. It contains passages that will make you laugh, passages that will make you sick, and passages that will make you mad. This is inflammatory material and it's no great trick to make it provocative. It was, however, more of a trick to make it into a good book that Eszerthas could manage.

Rating:
Summary: MUCH more than smutty tell-all
Review: What a memorable and highly rewarding read. This book is much more than the sum of it's salacious and often repugnant contents; it's also a lecture on morality and a history lesson as well. I don't see how someone who reads this book can be derisive regarding the interlacing of fiction or the sheer amount of sordid detail. Given Eszerhas' talent for script writing and keen interest for the underbelly of the American society, how his book is put together should be no surprise. It's certainly not a novel or a bucket of heresay poo.
I am one who is generally both revolted and amused by the tabloids, and shows like Entertainment Television. But I could not put this book down. The book is informative and revealing, and I found myself lauging out loud and cringing, often while reading the same paragraph. I particularly enjoyed the moments where Eszterhas reflects on his own life; it's probably the most engaging aspect of the book. Expecting to find a smutty and over the top tell-all, I found something rich in intelligent, values-based writing.

Rating:
Summary: White House Babylon
Review: While not a classic, American Rhapsody, (the title a play on the author's Hungarian roots), is outrageous, funny and a pathetic essay on the times. Eszterhas writes in an entertainingly readable style. He's clearly seen it all and probably not shocked at anything anymore since he did have a writing career writing for Rolling Stone when both the publication and the music mattered in the days of Jimi and Janis. And I don't think he cares whether he eats lunch anymore in either Hollywood or Washington. Everyone it seems makes an appearance in this book from sinners to saints and then some. It's a tempting read and a wild ride on a souped up Harley. I think Joe knows a lot more secrets and I'd love to hear more.