Brilliant and terrifying evocation of the crack monster devouring Washington, D.C., coupled with addicts' biographies. Tidwell (The Ponds of Kalambayi, 1990)—white, suburban, 26 years old—went to work as a counselor in an inner-city halfway house for addicts on the same day that George Bush, promising a kinder, gentler America, was inaugurated. That year—1989—would see Washington with a higher homicide rate than that of Beirut; the imposition of martial law; drug czar William Bennett's masked, shotgun-toting shock troops; and 25 percent of the city's young black men in the prison system. Tidwell, a gifted storyteller, relates how, his first day on the job, he naively asked Jake—a recovering addict—what ``rock'' (crack) was; Jake's second lesson for Tidwell was hitting the deck when the nightly gunfire began outside. As Tidwell began to know these men—Vietnam vets, federal clerks, ex-cops, construction workers—who had been caught in crack's net and lost all, he wondered how they were able to stay clean against all reason: When they left the house, they would be offered crack by dealers before they had gone a block; without carfare, some walked 15 miles a day, day after day, vying for jobs that paid five dollars an hour; and virtually all had broken families. Their trust of Tidwell deepening, the men introduced him to Narcotics Anonymous, an underground, self-help fellowship modelled after AA, which silently has grown apace with the drug epidemic. Tidwell's description of Bennett's troops forcing dealers to retreat to new areas throughout the city—ironically insuring that at some time virtually every teenager would have a 24-hour drug market on or near his block—juxtaposed with his passionate stories of addicts rebuilding their lives with NA meetings, makes unforgettable reading and an unequivocal damnation of politicians' get-tough promises. Unique and important in recent addiction literature: a very fine achievement.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1992
ISBN: 1-55958-108-5
Page Count: 350
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
A turgid, self-indulgent treatment of a rich topic: how ``selling has achieved dominion over the world in our time.'' Shorris (Latinos, 1992) long combined life as a writer with a top position at the N.W. Ayer advertising agency. ``I needed the job,'' he confesses. Unfortunately, his mea/nostra culpa is only infrequently a memoir; rather, he prefaces each chapter with parablelike fictions featuring unnamed salesfolk—though some ``have a worldly double''—not necessarily linked to the following text. Further contributing to the book's meandering nature is its scope: Shorris aims to begin at the Beginning. So he locates the archetypal salesman in the serpent of the Garden of Eden and its counterparts in other religious epics. He takes us through Plato and Charlemagne, Max Weber and Adam Smith, television and credit. However, he is given to sweeping statements: Salesmen, as mediators, ``cannot find a place for their economic loyalties''; and ``Bill Clinton does not sell in order to govern; he governs in order to sell.'' There are nuggets of interest: Shorris dissects the advertising titans' specious argument that their work aids national productivity; former General Motors chairman Roger Smith- -in one of a few interviews sprinkled through the book (two of them with the author's sons)—recounts his successful courting of Toyota. Shorris's grand conclusion, however, is that the archetypal Western person is homo vendens, the salesman, building a society without dignity, thus susceptible to tyranny. And so: ``The choice in our time is not to die but to think,'' to value knowledge above things. Okay. But others have better tackled this territory, either through close journalistic portraits (David Dorsey's The Force, p. 358) or more focused essays (Barry Schwartz's The Costs of Freedom, p. 538). In one of the many quotes prefacing chapters, Shorris even reproduces part of his proposal for this book. In this case, it seems, he's a better salesman than author. (First serial to Harper's)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-393-03672-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Many readers will feel uneasy reading Wright's dark and cynical portrayal of human nature, but he does a superb job of...
A provocative book by a senior editor of the New Republic, author of Three Scientists and Their Gods (1988), examining the vibrant new science of evolutionary psychology.
Even though, according to this science, natural selection has molded human nature into a deterministic pattern of selfish behavior, says Wright, there is still hope for developing a common moral outlook as long as we accept the ramifications of our evolutionary legacy. Natural selection insures that individuals are subconsciously preoccupied with the propagation of their genes. Although the cold, underlying logic of natural selection doesn't care about our happiness, it fools us into thinking that by pursuing goals that make us happy, we will maximize our genetic legacy. Lost in this pursuit is any genuine concern about community welfare. This volume covers much of the same ground as William Allman's superb overview The Stone Age Present. Wright extends Allman's arguments in much richer detail and a more authoritative tone, although he explains the science in a more roundabout manner. He weaves a complex and fascinating treatise in explaining the paradox of how society can engender moral and responsible actions when a strict Darwinian interpretation implies that human behavior is deterministic. Wright resolves this paradox by arguing that once people understand the Darwinian paradigm, they will understand their own subconscious motives, which is the first step towards addressing the bias toward self that natural selection instills in our minds.
Many readers will feel uneasy reading Wright's dark and cynical portrayal of human nature, but he does a superb job of anticipating questions and objections. He points to a growing body of evidence that says this is the way we are whether we like it or not, and he argues we're better off if we accept this fact.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-40773-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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