November Not Fiction Book Discussions

As we approach election day, This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral--Plus Plenty of Valet Parking!--in America's Gilded Capital by Mark Leibovich could demoralize you about the state of our nation's capital and the people who congregate there to run our government and report on those running our government. Or it could make you mad enough to go out and vote for change in your local and national referendums and races.

Leibovich is chief national correspondent for the New York Times Magazine, based in Washington, D.C., and has been a national political correspondent in the paper's Washington bureau and a writer for the Washington Post and the San Jose Mercury News. In This Town, he covers four years in the life of the political-media complex in Washington, D.C., from 2008 to 2012, "a time of alleged correction." Called "a modern-day Balzac" by Richard McGregor of the Financial Times, Leibovich shows us through cynically humorous vignettes of shameless networking at an endless cycle of media events, parties, and funerals how Washington has become "a crucible of easy wealth, fame, forgiveness, and next acts. Punditry has replaced reporting as journalism''s highest calling, accompanied by a mad dash of 'self-branding,' to borrow a term that had now fully infested the city . . . the most compelling part of the Washington story, whether now or before: it is a spinning stew of human need." Leibovich readily admits that he is a part of This Town, but he says he pleads optimism for Washington and the nation, maybe not at this particular political and cultural moment, but as an ideal. In the Afterward to the paperback edition, Leibovich describes the reaction to his portrayal of This Town both inside and outside Washington. While most Washington insiders were more interested in finding out whether they were mentioned in the book than in denying or defending the culture Leibovich describes, outside of Washington, "[a]ctual readers of the book got the point that the systemic dysfunction of Washington has in fact sustained a vast, decadent, and self-obsessed political class. . . . 'What can be done?' was the single most common question I received outside Washington." Leibovich points out that his book is a work of journalism, which "requires a certain amount of dispassion and cynicism," so he does not offer solutions. But he observes that "[c]ynicism is idealism turned inside out. It stems from an expectation unrealized and a promise perverted. That is so much of Washington today in a nutshell. I want the capital to do better. It should do better. The country deserves better."

What do you think? Is This Town an accurate portrayal of Washington today? If so, is the political-media complex giving the American public what it wants and deserves, or has it underestimated its civic intelligence and desire for real political engagement? Do you agree with George Packer that the recent shift away from a cohesive web of public and private institutions that offered a sense of national identity and security and towards a loose association of organized money and the cult of celebrity represents a true cultural change more than just a cycle in the life of the nation? If so, what can be done?

We hope you will join the discussions: Tuesday, November 4, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, November 20, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.