Author(s): Laura Kipnis

Issues/Current Affairs

We all relish a good scandal - the larger the figure (governor, judge) and more shocking the particulars (diapers, cigars) - the better. But why do people feel compelled to act out their tangled psychodramas on the national stage, and why do we so enjoy watching them, hurling our condemnations while savouring every lurid detail? Laura Kipnis examines contemporary downfall sagas to lay bare the modern psyche: what we desire, what we punish, and what we disavow. She analyses four paradigmatic cases: a lovelorn astronaut, an unhinged judge, a venomous whistleblower, and an over-imaginative memoirist. The motifs are classic - revenge, betrayal, ambition, madness - though the pitfalls are ones we all negotiate daily. After all, every one of us is a potential scandal in the making. This book is the entry point for a brilliant cultural romp as well as an anti-civics lesson. "Shove your rules," says scandal, and no doubt every upright citizen, deep within, cheers the transgression - as long as it's someone else's head on the block.