American Rhapsody - Hardcover

American Rhapsody is a gleeful act of outrage, simultaneously an assault on the Clintons and a bridge-burning, tell-all Hollywood memoir in the wicked spirit of You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again. Joe Eszterhas's narrative is a torrent of consciousness with no consistent sense of direction, but it all erupts from a plausible organizing principle best articulated in the chapter "Bubba in Pig Heaven": Hollywood is where Clinton really belongs. The author claims Bill watches Blazing Saddles six times a year, and says that Gennifer Flowers got him blazing by enacting a Sharon Stone-like crotch-shot scene years before Basic Instinct. When a sarcastic Clinton allegedly told a Hollywood producer that his enemies would soon be accusing him of coupling with a cow, the producer sent him Eszterhas's 1989 screenplay Sacred Cow, in which a president does just that. Eszterhas claims Spielberg dropped the film because of his friendship with Clinton. But he still thinks Clinton would be great in the role.

The Lewinsky saga really should be ho-hum by now, but American Rhapsody's Evel Knievel-like leaps of free association and mad brio breathe life into it. You've never been properly introduced to Linda Tripp and Lucianne Goldberg until you've read "The Ratwoman and the Bag Lady of Sleaze," its uproarious take on the pair. American Rhapsody gives dozens of stars time in the sweaty spotlight: Matt "the Scavenger" Drudge, heroic Larry Flynt (whose threat to report Republican scandals Eszterhas credits with quashing impeachment)--almost every big political scandal victim in memory. And there are lots of Hollywood types behaving badly: Bob Dylan, Warren Beatty, Ronald Reagan, Farrah Fawcett, Sharon Stone, Robert Evans, Sly Stallone (who wanted to portray Jesus onscreen), and even Joe Eszterhas. The fantasy chapters, printed in boldface, are sometimes funny (e.g., "Kenneth W. Starr Confesses"), but mostly they're both over the top and below the belt (e.g., "Willard Comes Clean," the confessions of the president's penis). What holds your interest is the main narrative, a heady mix of showbiz gossip, personal essay, and Lester Bangs-style prose mania. --Tim Appelo

"Eszterhas knows how to write. His prose sizzles and spits across these hot pages to the hip rhythms of the gonzo journalism... Much of the book is outrageously funny, particularly to readers with a healthy inner snickering teen. It's also flagrantly self-righteous, a finger-wagging indictment of how the hopes of the 1960s... went astray as the mind and heart of the chief executive were waylaid by the demanding presidential penis, which, according to Eszterhas (by way of Gennifer Flowers), the commander in chief refers to as 'Willard.'... A manic, mouthy, self-indulgent, impossible to ignore lament for America."
-- Publishers Weekly (starred review)