Publishers Weekly
07/12/2021
Sixty essays from Sullivan (Virtually Normal), former editor of the New Republic, are collected in this frank critique of America’s social and political culture. The pieces, which come from the New Republic, the New York Times and New York magazine, among other publications, are organized chronologically. “The Princess Bride,” from 1997, studies the phenomenon of Princess Diana’s fame, while 2007’s “Goodbye to All That: Why Obama Matters” sees Sullivan arguing that the case for an Obama presidency “has less to do with him than with the moment he is meeting.” “Why I Blog,” from 2008, meanwhile, takes a look at Sullivan’s early dabbling with online journalism, wherein he found blogging an “exhilarating literary liberation,” and 2016’s “Democracies End When They Are Too Democratic” uses Plato’s Republic to study Trump’s presidency. The author takes provocative views on such topics as campus culture (which he admonishes for turning “away from liberal education... toward the imperatives of an identity-based ‘social justice’ movement”) and the concept of hate crimes (he’s wary of them as “an oddly biased category”)—and readers across the political spectrum will find themselves under fire. Fans of Sullivan’s work are sure to enjoy having his intellectual curiosity and impassioned prose collected in one place. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
[These] essays don’t just communicate his thoughts, they communicate his heart. . . . Even his most passionate arguments are thoughtfully delivered, deeply rooted in his philosophy and faith. . . . When I reached the end of his book, I felt a sense of gratitude. . . . For 32 years a thoughtful man has demonstrated the courage of his convictions and challenged his readers time and again. . . . Read Out on a Limb for the snapshots of recent history. Read it to better understand the many journeys of one of America’s most important public intellectuals. But most of all read this book to see what it looks like when a thoughtful man tries his best to tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may.” —David French, New York Times
“A thrilling intellectual romp through the last 30 years of political and cultural debate . . . [Sullivan] is a writer in the tradition of Samuel Johnson, bringing all available faculties—intellectual, emotional, moral, and spiritual—to bear in his work.” —American Conservative
“Astringent and humane, and crucially, unpredictable." —Dwight Garner, New York Times
“Our last remaining major contrarian: a thinker who’s devoted his career to the proposition that even those with whom he agrees can err.” —Stephen L. Carter, Bloomberg
“[Out on a Limb] gathers 60 pieces from the past three decades that serve as both a chronicle of [Sullivan’s] life and a record of significant transformations in American culture. . . . Trenchant observations from an influential journalist.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Fans of Sullivan’s work are sure to enjoy having his intellectual curiosity and impassioned prose collected in one place.” —Publishers Weekly
PRAISE FOR ANDREW SULLIVAN:
“One of the most influential journalists of the last three decades.” —Ben Smith, The New York Times
“In my view the best and bravest commentator of our time. Really, the nearest thing to Orwell we have.” —Niall Ferguson
“The most important writer during the Trump era.” —Joe Scarborough
"No writer of comparable gifts [spoke out for same-sex marriage] earlier, pushed harder against what seemed at the time like an unassailable consensus, engaged as many critics (left and right, gay and straight) and addressed himself to as many audiences as Sullivan. No intellectual did as much to weave together the mix of arguments and intuitions that defines today’s emerging consensus on the issue. . . . I hear echoes of arguments that Andrew Sullivan, and often Andrew Sullivan alone, was making thirty years ago in almost every conversation and argument I’ve had about gay marriage in the last ten years. There’s no other issue and no other writer where the connection between things I read as a teenager and lines I hear today is as clear and direct and obvious. And if that isn’t evidence of distinctive, far-reaching influence then I don’t know what is." —Ross Douthat, The New York Times
“Andrew has never been a prophet, so much as a joyous heretic. Andrew taught me that you do not have to pretend to be smarter than you are. . . . When I read Andrew, I generally thought he was dedicated to the work of being honest. I did not think he was always honest. I don’t think anyone can be. But I thought he held ‘honesty’ as a standard—something that can’t be said of the large number of charlatans in this business.” —Ta-Nehisi Coates, Atlantic
“Andrew Sullivan has been more honest and open-minded than just about anybody else on the right.” —David Brooks, The New York Times
“He was without a natural constituency. He has built one by the force of his own personality, his arguments, and his talent. He is a valiant man.” —Matthew Parris, The Times (of London)
“Andrew Sullivan has done for homosexuality what John Stuart Mill did for freedom. . . . Only those familiar with the deep wells of the history of political philosophy . . . will recognize the scale of his achievement.” —Kenneth Minogue, National Review
“Who is the most influential public intellectual of the last twenty years? I'm inclined to pick Andrew Sullivan. He is hardly the only person behind the struggle for gay marriage, but he was one of the first—and the most relentless. And if one had to pick a single individual who embodied, drove, and represented the evolution of media to online forms, Andrew Sullivan would be a good choice. . . . He embodied the classic blogosphere like no other writer, as he fine-tuned and mastered the art of the blog as an ongoing critical—and indeed substantive—dialog with oneself.” —Tyler Cowen, Vox
LOVE UNDETECTABLE:
"One of the great pleasures of this book lies in watching Sullivan's mind at work . . . [his essays] are filled with a passion and heat that most cultural criticism lacks." —Katie Roiphe, The Washington Post
"Sullivan has found meaning in chaos. . . . With its paradoxical sense of beauty amid pain, Love Undetectable has something of the quality of a war memoir." —Andrew Delbanco, The New York Times Book Review
"On display here are all of the author's many strengths—compelling, poetic prose style, some keen observations on faith. . . . Sullivan offers a moving defense of the open gay male urban sexual culture and his participation in it." —Liz Galst, The Boston Globe
Kirkus Reviews
2021-06-16
The veteran journalist collects his controversial views on sex, religion, politics, and plagues.
Sullivan, whose essays, reviews, articles, and blog posts have appeared in the New Republic (where he was an editor), the New York Times, New York magazine, and the Weekly Dish newsletter, gathers 60 pieces from the past three decades that serve as both a chronicle of his life and a record of significant transformations in American culture. Describing himself as having “a querulous, insistent curiosity that sometimes relishes the hostility it often provokes,” Sullivan is not surprised to have incited strong responses: “An essay insisting on the biological roots of masculinity enraged some feminists; my opposition to ‘hate crime’ legislation maddened my fellow gays; my account of the moment AIDS in America no longer qualified as a plague was denounced.” His attack on the use of torture by the Bush administration infuriated the right, just as his attack on critical race and gender theory incensed the left. As a gay man, Sullivan has lived through a sea change in attitudes about homosexuality and gender, from grudging allowances for domestic partnerships to the legalization of gay marriage. His own marriage, in 2007, seemed momentous. With mixed feelings, he observes the erosion of any “single gay identity, let alone a single look or style or culture.” He argues that “distinctive gayness” was “integral” to gay identity. “It helped define us not only to the world but also to ourselves,” he writes. “Letting go is as hard as it is liberating, as saddening as it is invigorating.” Testosterone therapy, which he began in 2000 as a result of being HIV-positive, made him viscerally aware of the surge of energy, aggression, lust, and anger that resulted from what he called the “He Hormone.” Other pieces reveal Sullivan’s thoughts on Christianity, the death of his beloved beagle, Princess Diana as a cultural icon, Obama as a beacon of hope, and, most recently, Covid-19.
Trenchant observations from an influential journalist.
