How Not to Be American
Misadventures in the Land of the Free
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Quarto Publishing PLC
Published:3rd Oct '13
Should be back in stock very soon
‘ This new American uniform – the baseball cap, t-shirt, shorts and trainers (why not a scooter?) is not about looking good. It’ s about disappearing into a new, unofficial, global army of cultural babies. It says:
I eat hamburgers and watch TV and chew gum all day
I want everyone to play my game
You have to be nice to me and if you’ re not I’ m gonna shoot you
I can’ t understand a word you say
… and what is that but American foreign policy?’
Todd McEwen left the United States in 1980, but it’ s still driving him crazy. He worries about cheeseburgers, Cary Grant, Henry David Thoreau, democracy, the Elks Club and Daffy Duck. Join him on his acid-reflux examination of what America has come to be.
‘This is an exceptionally urbane and witty collection of essays, loosely linked around varieties of Americana...and although the book is laugh-out-loud funny, the reader is acutely aware that the comedy is a carapace for profound misgivings... If you like the Daily Show or The Colbert Report you will find an ally, a comforter and a co-conspirator in McEwen. If you don’t like them, you’ll probably never pick this book up and have a deep scepticism about the written word anyway.’
‘This is an exceptionally urbane and witty collection of essays, loosely linked around varieties of Americana...and although the book is laugh-out-loud funny, the reader is acutely aware that the comedy is a carapace for profound misgivings... If you like the Daily Show or The Colbert Report you will find an ally, a comforter and a co-conspirator in McEwen. If you don’t like them, you’ll probably never pick this book up and have a deep scepticism about the written word anyway.’
ISBN: 9781781312353
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
240 pages