Lee Oser's Old Enemies is a joy to read, clever and astute, sharp and funny, satiric but humane. We have the issues of our time in dramatic light. . . .Through it all courses Moses Shea, an advertising whiz who is brilliant with languages, a reader of the classics, not very attractive or heroic, but with a moral center that brings the sad and galling truths of life in the 2020s to piercing light. His verbal joustings with the personalities around him are gems of wit worthy of a Restoration comedy. Read this book and you will think deeply--and also laugh out loud. - Mark Bauerlein, Senior Editor, First Things
In an America running on algorithms, outrage, and half-truths, ex-journalist Moses Shea is down on his luck. Blacklisted in New York, dumped by the only woman he ever loved, he has one skill that might save him--he's a wizard at languages. His last chance comes through his old Harvard pal Nick Carty, whose business empire could use a man of Moses' talents. But when his new job lands him on the campus of a defunct Catholic college, the disgraced newspaperman gets pulled back into the news.
This novel, nearly impossible to put down, will make you laugh out loud--repeatedly. It will also give you hope for the continuation of Western culture. - Richard Rankin Russell, Professor of English, Baylor University
Old Enemies is a contemporary version of The Praise of Folly, taking aim at the deceptions, self-deceptions, and irrationalities that so often underpin people's quests for power. - Ernest Suarez, David M. O'Connell Professor of English, The Catholic University of America
