Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch

by David Mamet

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

“Savagery appeased can only grow. Once you give in to it, it must escalate, like a fire searching for air.”

The man who won the Pulitzer Prize for GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, who wrote the classic films THE VERDICT and WAG THE DOG sounds his alarm about the Visigoths at our gates.

In RECESSIONAL he calls out, skewers, mocks, and, most importantly, dissects the virus of conformity which is now an existential threat to the West.

A broad-ranging journey through history, the Bible, and literature, RECESSIONAL examines how politics and cultural attitudes about rebellion have shifted in the United States in the last generation. By screaming down freedom of thought and expression, Mamet explains, we kill invention and democracy – the foundations of security and growth.

A wickedly funny, wistful and wry appeal to the free-thinking citizen, RECESSIONAL is a vital warning that if we don’t confront the cultural thuggery now, the commissars and their dupes will transform the Land of the Free into the dictatorship at which they aim.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063159006
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	04/05/2022
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	623,171
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

David Mamet is one of the foremost American playwrights. He has won a Pulitzer prize and received Tony nominations for his plays, Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed-the-Plow. His screenwriting credits include The Verdict and The Untouchables.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

The Fountain Pen 5

Cause and Effect 11

Reds, Pinks, and Goo-Goos 17

What's in a Name 23

Pippa Passes 29

King Kong 33

Some (Mainly) Musical Revelations 37

Two Hangings 41

Various Discoveries 45

Farther Along; or, The Accident Chain 51

On the Passivity of Jews 55

Bruno Bettelheim and the Broke-Down Cowboy: Two American Stories 61

Attention Must Be Paid 67

Experts and Oligarchs 71

Slave Lessons 75

Belinda Raguesto Returns from Switzerland 81

Hamlet and Oedipus Meet the Zombies 89

A Message from Schpershevski 95

Chelm; or, No Arrest for the Wicked 101

Some Linguistic Curiosities 105

The Nazis Got Your Mom 113

Demotic, a Confession 119

Grief and Wisdom 127

Time Travel 133

Moby Dick 139

Real Live 143

Rainy Day Fun for Shut-Ins: Xmas 2020 147

Give My Regrets to Broadway 155

Broadway 159

Gags 167

Humility 173

Max the Hamster 177

Disons le Mot 183

Art, Time, and the Madness of the Old 189

Tug-of-Peace 193

The Awl Through the Ear 197

Goodnight, Irene 203

Recessional 209

Acknowledgments 215

Index 217

Editorial Reviews

01/31/2022

Pulitzer-winning playwright Mamet (The Secret Knowledge) mixes political and cultural commentary in these pugnacious if undercooked essays written during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. Though Mamet’s incisive wit and sharp turns-of-phrase are on display, they’re employed in the service of typical right-wing talking points about how universities, the mainstream media, unions, and “elected leaders on the coasts” have “conspired to divide and conquer” America. The most cogent pieces include “Demotic, a Confession,” in which Mamet expresses regret at his involvement in the 1970s counterculture, and “Humility,” which reflects on the habits of aging writers (“exuberance, once exhausted, is not seen again”). Elsewhere, Mamet delivers a near-incoherent screed against the “envenomed prigs” who expect theater audiences to “drag themselves... to pediatric lectures on diversity,” and laments the lack of middle-class housing in Los Angeles and New York City while contending that “there is no way to reverse the trend of commerce.” Though the cultural criticism occasionally hits the mark, the collection’s scattershot quality and grumpy politics will try the patience of all but the most dedicated Mamet fan. These tossed-off musings are more tiresome than edifying. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

2022-01-11
A playwright once known for brilliant observation delivers an irate diatribe against anyone who doesn’t like Donald Trump.

Mamet’s punching bag is the “Left,” his base audience, “law-abiding Americans, anguished at the wreck the Left has made of this country, are wondering at the stroke of what midnight the Left will completely unmask and how little their visage then will differ from their current costume.” The dreaded socialists on the left side of the aisle—Pelosi, Sanders, et al.—bring all kinds of bad things to bear on conservatives, droning on about climate change, imposing mask mandates, and kneeling in protest against police brutality and racism. In one of his heavy-handed, disjointed essays, Mamet asks, “What was the ‘insurrection’? There was vandalism in the halls of Congress, a Capitol police officer was killed, and some poor woman died.” No big deal, right? If there’s something to whine about, Mamet finds it. He argues that Trump “was at a disadvantage because he did not lie,” which presumably allows enough wiggle room to encompass the thousands of “alternative facts.” The author decries assimilationist Jews who vote for liberals instead of “the only president who treated them as human beings.” (You know who.) He wonders why he shouldn’t be able to use the N-word freely, and he dismisses “cancel culture” as a leftist tool of thought control—never mind that it seems most widely deployed as a rightist tool to ban books in public schools, institutions that Mamet despises, too. The author also likens climate change scientists to “Stalin’s science adviser, Trofim Lysenko.” It’s a bitter, boring litany with one or two accidentally calm observations on the role of playwrights in guiding audiences on how to think about characters, leavening vituperation and right-wing agitprop with oddly juxtaposed nostalgia.

A depressing performance best skipped by anyone outside of Trump world.

Kirkus Reviews