 First edition | |
| Author | David Lipsky |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin |
Publication date | July 4, 2003 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 384 |
| ISBN | 1-4000-7693-5 |
Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point is a 2003 book by American author David Lipsky. It was placed on several top book lists, including Amazon's Best Books of the Year (2003). [1] The work became a New York Times Notable Book and a New York Times bestseller. [2]
The book recounts four years in the lives of students at the United States Military Academy.
Portions of Absolutely American were published in Rolling Stone magazine [3] [4] [5] [6] and were broadcast on National Public Radio's All Things Considered . [7] An audio excerpt aired on This American Life . [8]
The book's genesis was a piece Lipsky wrote for Rolling Stone [9] —the longest article published in that magazine since Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas . The book follows cadets in one West Point company, G-4, from their arrival to graduation. As Newsweek noted, composition of the book required "14,000 pages of interview transcripts, 60 notebooks and four pairs of boots." [10] As The New York Times wrote, Lipsky was not initially well disposed toward the military: "He was, like most young people, entirely cut off from military life. The Army was the one profession his father absolutely refused to let him consider." [9]
| External video | |
|---|---|
 Booknotes interview with Lipsky on Absolutely American, August 17, 2003, C-SPAN |
Absolutely American received general acclaim from book critics. In Time , novelist and critic Lev Grossman wrote that it was "fascinating, funny, and tremendously well-written. Take a good look: this is the face America turns to most of the world, and until now it's one that most of us have never seen. A mesmerizing and powerfully human spectacle." [11] Newsweek called the book "addictive". In a front-cover review in The New York Times Book Review , [12] David Brooks called the book "wonderfully told", praising it as both "a superb description of modern military culture, and one of the most gripping accounts of university life I have read." [13] Within a few weeks of publication, the work had sold out of most American distributors. As Sara Nelson reported in the New York Observer ,
It's every author's dream: You write a book that everybody loves. It gets fabulous reviews—one of them on the front page of The New York Times Book Review . You appear on the Today show and on C-Span and you tape Charlie Rose. There's even interest from Hollywood—and you fly out to take some meetings. There's only one problem: There are precious few copies of your book to be found in the bookstores—and if someone wants one, they're going to have to wait, sometimes as long as three weeks. That's exactly the situation author David Lipsky found himself in last week. [14]
The work was a New York Times bestseller, [15] New York Times Notable Book, [16] Amazon Best Book of the Year, [1] Time magazine Best Book of the Year, [17] and was selected as required reading for the incoming class at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. [18] Film and television rights were acquired by Disney. [19]
Rolling Stone is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its coverage of rock music and for political reporting by Hunter S. Thompson. In the 1990s, the magazine broadened and shifted its focus to a younger readership interested in youth-oriented television shows, film actors, and popular music. It has since returned to its traditional mix of content, including music, entertainment, and politics.
David Foster Wallace was an American author of novels, short stories and essays, and a university professor of English and creative writing. Wallace is widely known for his 1996 novel Infinite Jest, which Time magazine cited as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. His posthumous novel, The Pale King (2011), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2012. The Los Angeles Times's David Ulin called Wallace "one of the most influential and innovative writers of the last twenty years".
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David Lipsky is an American author. His works have been New York Times bestsellers, New York Times Notable Books, Time, Amazon, and NPR Best Books of the Year, and have been included in The Best American Magazine Writing and The Best American Short Stories collections.
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Lev Grossman is an American novelist and journalist who wrote The Magicians Trilogy: The Magicians (2009), The Magician King (2011), and The Magician's Land (2014). He was the book critic and lead technology writer at Time magazine from 2002 to 2016. His recent work includes the children's book The Silver Arrow, and the screenplay for the film The Map of Tiny Perfect Things, based on his short story.
"Paint It Black" is a song recorded in 1966 by the English rock band the Rolling Stones. A product of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' songwriting partnership, it is an uptempo song with Indian, Middle Eastern and Eastern European influences and features lyrics about grief and loss. London Records released the song as a single on 7 May 1966 in the United States; Decca Records released it on 13 May in the United Kingdom. London Records included it as the opening track on the American version of the band's 1966 studio album Aftermath.
Eric S. Perlstein is an American historian and journalist who has garnered recognition for his chronicles of the 1960s and 1970s, and the American conservative movement. The author of five bestselling books, Perlstein received the 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for his first book, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus. Politico has dubbed him "a chronicler extraordinaire of modern conservatism."
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Wonderful Today, subtitled The Autobiography, is the 2007 autobiography by English former fashion model and photographer Pattie Boyd, written with journalist and broadcaster Penny Junor. It was published by Headline Review in Britain, on 23 August 2007, and by Harmony Books in the United States, where it was titled Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me. Beginning with her childhood in Kenya, the book covers Boyd's modelling career in London during the 1960s, her marriage to and divorce from Beatle George Harrison and later marriage and divorce of Harrison's best friend, Eric Clapton. The book's title is in reference to Clapton's 1977 song "Wonderful Tonight", which he wrote about Boyd.
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The End of the Tour is a 2015 American drama film about writer David Foster Wallace. The film stars Jason Segel and Jesse Eisenberg, was written by Donald Margulies, and was directed by James Ponsoldt. Based on David Lipsky's best-selling memoir Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, screenwriter Margulies first read the book in 2011, and sent it to Ponsoldt, a former student of his, who took on the job of director. Filming took place in early 2014 in Michigan, with scenes also shot at the Mall of America. Danny Elfman provided the score, with the soundtrack featuring songs by musicians like R.E.M. and Brian Eno, whose inclusion was based on the kind of music Wallace and Lipsky listened to.
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