Scandal!

Book: Smile Pretty and Say Jesus: The Last Great Days of PTL

Author: Hunter James

Published: 1993 (University of Georgia Press)

Pages: 210

On the surface, this is a tale of greed and denial and hypocrisy channeled through one of the biggest evangelical Christian empires this side of the Rocky Mountains. Jim and Tammy Fay Bakker start their ministry with coins rattling in their collection cigar box, got on TV through a masterful puppet show that evolved into a gi-fucking-normous media/theme park thing that made them enough money to burn through with Cadillacs and makeup and Kmart shopping sprees until their financial mismanagement and Jim's sexual eccentricities were exposed. Then Jerry Faulwell took over, trip over some of the exact same problems of his own (although on a smaller scale), and the whole shebang ended on a half-finished luxury hotel taken over by Native Americans who now owned the land on which it was getting built. 

I'm pretty sure everybody knows the surface bit of the story, or can at least trace its familiar tropes. That makes it no less enjoyable to read about. Not with a malicious anti-religious smugness, but with a wonder at exactly how much people can trust their leaders and how much these leaders can built on shaky grounds before everything just goes SMASH.

But take a closer look into this, and you'll get the equally interesting and far more worrying glimpse of a newspaper man driven insane by his job.

Late nights, early mornings, no distinguishes between the two, camping out for hours to grab two seconds of a subject's time, chasing phone calls, editors spitting profanity like sparks from blowtorches--these are all pretty standard for an old-school paper journalist. James, who eventually reveals that he's over fifty during his coverage of this scandal, should be used to it if maybe getting tired of all the abuse. Instead, he drops in these stream-of-consciousness lines, even a whole chapter, that drop psychological hints about how much he hates all of this. He misses deadlines, drinks and takes downers, doesn't seem to know how to get out of all of his misery. He doesn't enjoy any of the chase.


And based on his continual failure to get close enough to any of the major people in this to fill out 500-word articles, I really wonder how he managed that for full book.

Somehow he manages to forge a great connection between his personal downfall and the one he's supposed to be covering. It does make me wonder about his career after this, though. Was it his last stand as well as the Bakkers' and Faulwell's? He never says. I hope he retired into one of those "old guy" desk jobs he was talking about by the end. 

Which is sort of a horrible thing to wish on a reporter. But dude was worn OUT. 

I give in to Prachett pressure.

Book: Making Money

Author: Terry Pratchett

Published: 2007 (Harper)

Pages: 404

Of course I like Terry Prachett. He prods at social and government structures (like the concept of paper money and the gold standard) with offhand British humor, reluctant heroes and glare-y villains who secretly know they’re a little ridiculous which makes them try all the more to compensate, general fantasy-tinged shenanigans, and a small mutt dog as majority shareholder of a bank that falls into the hands of the postmaster general who used to be a studied criminal until he was hanged only enough to let him escape into a different name.

Psychologically, I had to get over three things:

• My disinclination to read anything of a series, especially a giant multi-book and –decade fantasy series like the Discworld novels, aka my horror of reading epics out of turn and missing vital things just because the library doesn’t have the whole set and how will I know to invest in the series if I don’t read all of them in the right order and ahhhh! First world bibliophile problems make the Constant Reader brain melt.
• Overhyping of Pratchett, aka I’ve heard so much good that there’s no way he could be as witty as everyone keeps telling me. But he is. Like Douglas Adams, only with a little more sex and slightly less overt wordplay (subliminal pun count could still be anyone’s game).
•  Wondering why I hadn’t yet read this, aka I vaguely remember buying this in the school bookstore like two years ago and if I haven’t managed it yet there must have been something TERRIBLY WRONG with the first sentence or something. Turns out my excuse was “or something,” which means none at all.

So. I understand the Prachett lure now. (Every time a book blogger types that, another fantasy author gets his/her black oversized cowboy hat.)