Outside Looking In
Adventures of an Observer
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
"One of the country's most distinguished intellectuals [and] one of its most provocative."
-The New York Times
Look out for a new book from Garry Wills, What the Qur'an Meant, coming fall 2017.
Bookish and retiring, Garry Wills has been an outsider in the academy, in journalism, even in his church. Yet these qualities have, paradoxically, prompted people to share intimate insights with him- perhaps because he is not a rival, a competitor, or a threat. Sometimes this made him the prey of con men like conspiratorialist Mark Lane or civil rights leader James Bevel. At other times it led to close friendship with such people as William F. Buckley, Jr., or singer Beverly Sills. The result is the most personal book Wills has ever written.
With his dazzling style and journalist's eye for detail, Wills brings history to life, whether it's the civil rights movement; the protests against the Vietnam War; the presidential campaigns of Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton; or the set of Oliver Stone's Nixon. Illuminating and provocative, Outside Looking In is a compelling chronicle of an original thinker at work in remarkable times.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This is an episodic but completely captivating collection by the prolific journalist, historian, political columnist, and practicing Catholic Wills (Lincoln at Gettysburg). Now 76, he writes an intensely opinionated re-evaluation of leaders he has encountered (surprisingly favorable for some, such as Nixon, whom he called "an intellectually serious and prepared candidate"), autobiographical reminiscences, and insightful, mostly admiring essays on important people in his life, including Studs Terkel (shrewd about politicians, generous to his friends); Beverly Sills and her popular mother, known as Mama Sills; his father (fearless, resilient, fun); and his loving tribute to his wife of 50 years. As for William Buckley, Wills began writing for his conservative National Review in 1957, but his 1960s support of civil rights and opposition to the Vietnam War produced a rupture. He describes how, with Buckley's sister Priscilla as intermediary, Wills and Buckley touchingly resumed their friendship before the latter's death in 2008. The book does not recycle old articles. although it includes outtakes, unprintable at the time, such as material about Nixon's marital troubles, omitted from an Esquire article during the 1968 presidential campaign
