Collection
Genres
Publication
New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, [2023]
Description
"As a columnist for the Washington Post, Alexandra Petri has watched in real time as those who didn't learn from history have been forced to repeat it. And repeat it. And repeat it. If we repeat history one more time, we're going to fail! Maybe it's time for a new textbook. Alexandra Petri's US History contains a lost (invented!) history of America. (A history for people disappointed that the only president whose weird sex letters we have is Warren G. Harding.) Petri's "historical fan fiction" draws on real events and completely absurd fabrications to create a laugh-out-loud, irreverent takedown of our nation's complicated past."--
Language
Original language
English
User reviews
LibraryThing member DavidWineberg
(Full disclosure:) As I have noted with very few other authors, I confess I am a fan of Alexandra Petri. Anything she writes is worth reading for me. Alexandra Petri’s US History is no exception. From George Washington to Donald Trump, it tags and warps notable Americans (in chronological order),
In a very fast reading 320 pages, Petri turns the US on its head, recognizing the styles of its leading characters, mocking them (mostly) gently, and demonstrating a comfort with -what were we even thinking when we elected them.
The stories are short (one has no words beyond the title), column-sized snippets in the life of historical people and events. There are plenty of laughs for pretty much anyone enmeshed in American pop culture and history.
The skewering is not limited to mere presidents. Petri simulates what an Ayn Rand children’s storybook would read like. What if Emily Dickinson called in to chat with Tech Support. William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal reprise their painfully pompous debates, over nothing. There’s also an examination of why civil war photographs are so sad looking, and of Modern Etiquette – 1871 edition, which instructs that for evening ball seasons, redheaded debutantes must shelter in a root cellar. Not terribly far from the truth.
Sadly, a lot of it will be wasted. Readers will have to have read Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Carl Sandburg, Allen Ginsburg and Hunter Thompson to get their chapters in this book. But readers will have no problem understanding Top Toys for Puritan Parents, John and Abigail Adams Sexting, and Edgar Allen Poe’s Handyman.
The biggest groan comes in the Upton Sinclair chapter, demolishing The Jungle, his epic novel excoriating the meatpacking industry. When the hero Jurgis dies, she says “Jurgis’s funeral was small but not lacking in taste.” Ugh.
I was having difficulty picking a favorite, when I found myself laughing out loud at The Team at Build-A-Bear Respond on the Thirteenth Anniversary of 9/11. In its mere two pages, it manages to demolish modern marketing, self-important managers, social media, corporate hubris, lack of empathy and internet memes with devastating simplicity and elegance. The clear winner.
But there’s also Exclamation Point!, the untold history of Richard Rogers’ obsession with them against the saner notions of Oscar Hammerstein and everyone else he ever worked with. Lynn Riggs, out of whose story Oklahoma! developed, commented that she thought it might have better to call it Oklahoma? – but nobody asked her.
Alexandra Petri’s US History is fluff, stuff and nonsense, in delightful, digestible doses.
David Wineberg
Show More
in short essays torturing their records and characters.In a very fast reading 320 pages, Petri turns the US on its head, recognizing the styles of its leading characters, mocking them (mostly) gently, and demonstrating a comfort with -what were we even thinking when we elected them.
The stories are short (one has no words beyond the title), column-sized snippets in the life of historical people and events. There are plenty of laughs for pretty much anyone enmeshed in American pop culture and history.
The skewering is not limited to mere presidents. Petri simulates what an Ayn Rand children’s storybook would read like. What if Emily Dickinson called in to chat with Tech Support. William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal reprise their painfully pompous debates, over nothing. There’s also an examination of why civil war photographs are so sad looking, and of Modern Etiquette – 1871 edition, which instructs that for evening ball seasons, redheaded debutantes must shelter in a root cellar. Not terribly far from the truth.
Sadly, a lot of it will be wasted. Readers will have to have read Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Carl Sandburg, Allen Ginsburg and Hunter Thompson to get their chapters in this book. But readers will have no problem understanding Top Toys for Puritan Parents, John and Abigail Adams Sexting, and Edgar Allen Poe’s Handyman.
The biggest groan comes in the Upton Sinclair chapter, demolishing The Jungle, his epic novel excoriating the meatpacking industry. When the hero Jurgis dies, she says “Jurgis’s funeral was small but not lacking in taste.” Ugh.
I was having difficulty picking a favorite, when I found myself laughing out loud at The Team at Build-A-Bear Respond on the Thirteenth Anniversary of 9/11. In its mere two pages, it manages to demolish modern marketing, self-important managers, social media, corporate hubris, lack of empathy and internet memes with devastating simplicity and elegance. The clear winner.
But there’s also Exclamation Point!, the untold history of Richard Rogers’ obsession with them against the saner notions of Oscar Hammerstein and everyone else he ever worked with. Lynn Riggs, out of whose story Oklahoma! developed, commented that she thought it might have better to call it Oklahoma? – but nobody asked her.
Alexandra Petri’s US History is fluff, stuff and nonsense, in delightful, digestible doses.
David Wineberg
Show Less
LibraryThing member hcnewton
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
---
WHAT'S THE INSIDE COVER FLAP OF ALEXANDRA PETRI'S US HISTORY SAY?
A witty, absurdist satire of the last 500 years, Alexandra Petri’s US History is the fake textbook you never knew you needed!
As a columnist for the Washington Post, Alexandra
Alexandra Petri’s US History contains a lost (invented!) history of America. (A history for people disappointed that the only president whose weird sex letters we have is Warren G. Harding.) Petri’s "historical fan fiction" draws on real events and completely absurd fabrications to create a laugh-out-loud, irreverent takedown of our nation’s complicated past.
On Petri’s deranged timeline, John and Abigail Adams try sexting, the March sisters from Little Women are sixty feet tall, and Susan Sontag goes to summer camp. Nearly eighty short, hilarious pieces span centuries of American history and culture. Ayn Rand rewrites The Little Engine That Could. Nikola Tesla’s friends stage an intervention when he falls in love with a pigeon. The characters from Sesame Street invade Normandy. And Mark Twain—who famously said reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated—offers a detailed account of his undeath, in which he becomes a zombie.
WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT ALEXANDRA PETRI'S US HISTORY?
There are 76 pieces in this collection--not all are going to be winners. The odds against that are just too great. The tricky thing is (obviously) the ones I consider winners aren't necessarily going to be the ones that you identify as winners--that's probably because you have more refined tastes than me. I'm okay with that (and you should be, too). But I assumed that going in, so the question is: are there enough that you're going to find funny to make reading all of them (or at least starting all of them before occasionally deciding to move on) worth it?
Absolutely.
Some of these start strong and then peter out--like some Saturday Night Live sketches. Some start strong and build from there. Some are duds from the beginning. And a few (to go back to SNL) leave you wanting Matt Foley to yell about the van down by the river one or two more times.
A few of the pieces that had me laughing were:
* the spider in a certain Northhampton church who took umbrage at some of Edwards' imagery
* a poem about the other guy who rode the night Paul Revere did, but his name is hard to rhyme
* a conversation about writing the song that became the tune for The Star-Spangled Banner
* an abridgment of The Scarlett Letter
* the man who bought his wife yellow wallpaper trying to get a refund
* what would Gatsby have been like if Hemingway wrote it?
* someone from Sun-Made trying to get Lorraine Hansbury to strike up a partnership
* Build-a-Bear's attempt to commemorate 9/11
I really could've gone on there, but I think between that and the above quotation, you get an idea. I could've come up with a similar list of ones that didn't work for me--but why bother?
If any of the above topics/ideas seem like something you'd enjoy, you're likely to have fun with over half of this book. When Petri is funny, she's hilarious. When she's not...well, there are words on the page that you can definitely read. Her highs are so high and her lows are...still above sea level. I don't think anything was "bad" here, just some pieces that I really didn't care for.
I'm glad I read this. You'll probably be, too. I do recommend this, as long as you go in with open eyes.
---
WHAT'S THE INSIDE COVER FLAP OF ALEXANDRA PETRI'S US HISTORY SAY?
A witty, absurdist satire of the last 500 years, Alexandra Petri’s US History is the fake textbook you never knew you needed!
As a columnist for the Washington Post, Alexandra
Show More
Petri has watched in real time as those who didn’t learn from history have been forced to repeat it. And repeat it. And repeat it. If we repeat history one more time, we’re going to fail! Maybe it’s time for a new textbook.Alexandra Petri’s US History contains a lost (invented!) history of America. (A history for people disappointed that the only president whose weird sex letters we have is Warren G. Harding.) Petri’s "historical fan fiction" draws on real events and completely absurd fabrications to create a laugh-out-loud, irreverent takedown of our nation’s complicated past.
On Petri’s deranged timeline, John and Abigail Adams try sexting, the March sisters from Little Women are sixty feet tall, and Susan Sontag goes to summer camp. Nearly eighty short, hilarious pieces span centuries of American history and culture. Ayn Rand rewrites The Little Engine That Could. Nikola Tesla’s friends stage an intervention when he falls in love with a pigeon. The characters from Sesame Street invade Normandy. And Mark Twain—who famously said reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated—offers a detailed account of his undeath, in which he becomes a zombie.
WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT ALEXANDRA PETRI'S US HISTORY?
There are 76 pieces in this collection--not all are going to be winners. The odds against that are just too great. The tricky thing is (obviously) the ones I consider winners aren't necessarily going to be the ones that you identify as winners--that's probably because you have more refined tastes than me. I'm okay with that (and you should be, too). But I assumed that going in, so the question is: are there enough that you're going to find funny to make reading all of them (or at least starting all of them before occasionally deciding to move on) worth it?
Absolutely.
Some of these start strong and then peter out--like some Saturday Night Live sketches. Some start strong and build from there. Some are duds from the beginning. And a few (to go back to SNL) leave you wanting Matt Foley to yell about the van down by the river one or two more times.
A few of the pieces that had me laughing were:
* the spider in a certain Northhampton church who took umbrage at some of Edwards' imagery
* a poem about the other guy who rode the night Paul Revere did, but his name is hard to rhyme
* a conversation about writing the song that became the tune for The Star-Spangled Banner
* an abridgment of The Scarlett Letter
* the man who bought his wife yellow wallpaper trying to get a refund
* what would Gatsby have been like if Hemingway wrote it?
* someone from Sun-Made trying to get Lorraine Hansbury to strike up a partnership
* Build-a-Bear's attempt to commemorate 9/11
I really could've gone on there, but I think between that and the above quotation, you get an idea. I could've come up with a similar list of ones that didn't work for me--but why bother?
If any of the above topics/ideas seem like something you'd enjoy, you're likely to have fun with over half of this book. When Petri is funny, she's hilarious. When she's not...well, there are words on the page that you can definitely read. Her highs are so high and her lows are...still above sea level. I don't think anything was "bad" here, just some pieces that I really didn't care for.
I'm glad I read this. You'll probably be, too. I do recommend this, as long as you go in with open eyes.
Show Less