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February 17, 2014
Best Book, Hands Down, on any American President: Joe Eszterhas's American Rhapsody.
In 2000, Joe Eszterhas, former Rolling Stone editor, celebrated screenwriter, outspoken Hollywood insider and fellow Buckeye, unleashed my favorite non-fiction book: American Rhapsody. In it Eszterhas explores every fact, nuance, rumor and flight of intelligent fancy on the subject of Bill Clinton's 1995-1997 relationship with Monica Lewinsky, its real roots and the scandal as it emerged in 1998. The book is a masterful, often analytical, way-funny and brilliantly perceptive romp through scores of players, famous and obscure, with a part or bit part in the Clinton-Lewinsky drama. Esterhas has also dissected and thoroughly sussed one William Jefferson Clinton, and it's an achievement. American readers, depending on his or her sensibilities and politics, will come away liking, or disliking, the man even more. Two other bonuses come to mind. American Rhapsody is also a fine history (told in flashbacks) of American Baby Boomers, and a painstaking interpretation of Boomer culture. And Eszterhas is simply a joy to read. He is one of the most gifted writers of English, in any genre, of the last forty years.
Posted by JD Hull at February 17, 2014 02:34 PM
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