Recessional The death of free speech and the cost of a free lunch

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.)

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. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.