We stumbled upon this review this morning and we had to share it with you. Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher has cowritten a new book called, naturally, Joe the Plumber: Fighting for the American Dream. One leaky pipe at a time.Now, if it's possible that you didn't get enough of Joe back in the fall when he (and the media's and both campaign's manipulations of him) hijacked the U.S. presidential election, then this is the book for you. For the rest of us, I think this PopMatters review sums it up neatly:
Back to the seemingly ordinary tale of Joe the Plumber, who, according to the book’s insert, has become “an American folk hero and the ultimate icon of the working class.” Woody Guthrie is probably rolling in his grave. Tabback and Wurzelbacher paint Joe as a Panglossian figure – always willing to lend a helping hand and open his door to his neighbors. Well, perhaps if his neighbors are also pro-Israel, pro-Christian, neo-conservatives. And such is the damning irony of this book. The authors have the audacity to go to great lengths to show how “American” Joe is and how he’s like everyone else, but he’s not: he has a very specific, very narrow point of view of American politics that can only be shared by one demographic at the intersections of race
(Caucasian), gender (male) and location (Midwest).
We also love the review's headline: “Freedom Isn’t Free! It Costs At Least $24.95.”
Thanks to Bookforum for alerting us to this.
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