I’m excited to tell you I have a new book out, Views from the Side Mirror: Essaying America. 

To paraphrase David Byrne, do you ask yourself: How did we get here?

How did our politics become so bizarre, so polarized and disjointed.  What’s happened to the people who inhabit this strange landscape – the ones who are shaping it, and the ones who have to live in it? 

There’s the America that is, and the one that could be.  I like to explore that gulf between, to see how we might bridge it.

Interspersed among the book’s essays are descriptions from our Lower Manhattan vantage point of the surreal hours and days after 9/11, when we had to show papers to get to our home and all the trucks heading north were covered with white dust that splayed behind them.

I portray the underlying dynamic of American politics, between Republican venality and Democratic haplessness – and what that foretells for the impeachment process.  We needed the Avengers and got the Muppets.

If the Democrats and Republicans were waiters, we’d send them back to the kitchen with no tip for their lousy service.  We could really use a new political party.

On the cultural side, I contrast Fonzie vs. Kramer, exploring their different kinds of appeal and what they say about the respective eras of these iconic characters.

It concludes with the question “Trump: Virus or Vaccine?”, will his time in office inoculate the country from his brand of politics for personal gain, or has he permanently infected the body politic?

So yes, what I’m asking is: buy the book.  Share news about it on your social media feeds.  Review it.  Let me know what you think about it, and the issues it raises.  How to make America sane again.

Btw, with some early sales the book is in the top 100 books of Historical Essays on Amazon.  With your help let’s break into the top 10!

Thanks, 

Robert