Alexandra Petri's US History

February 1, 2023
Washington Post humor writer Petri attempts a funny spin on history. The author opens by channeling the previous occupant of the White House, proclaiming that since history is written by the winners, she, though "not a historian, or a scholar" is now "something much more important: a winner." She continues with a series of imagined, counterfactual episodes--e.g., an Indigenous person objecting to the terms of the so-called Columbian exchange, displeased about providing potatoes on one hand in exchange for disease on the other ("Typhus took generations to perfect," the European says); or a New Yorker who misreads the words Erie Canal as an instigation for a more vigorous horror literature of the sort that Edgar Allan Poe will soon be cranking out. Some of the pieces work: Petri does a nice job mangling F. Scott Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby by inserting Hemingway-esque declarations into its famous closing, and she effectively dumbs down Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, which probably didn't need the simplification, to have Guy Montag explain that what makes a book dangerous is the ideas it contains ("It's, like, a metaphor"). Also entertaining: an exchange in which Frank Lloyd Wright defends his leaky, short roofs by explaining that they're keyed to his height, which is "the perfect height for a human being"; and Rodgers and Hammerstein arguing over whether, having put an exclamation point on Oklahoma! their other works might benefit from the same treatment (re: South Pacific, "It's a geographical location. It doesn't need pizzazz"). Petri's disquisitions on the shooting of John Lennon, a drugless Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and the U.S. presidents in Ragnarok are duds. Much of the book, studded with fun moments, lacks the sustained wit and goofiness of the British humor classic 1066 and All That. A sporadically humorous take on the American past, which is all too seldom a laughing matter.

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February 13, 2023
“If you’re going to instruct all the educators in America to teach history that did not happen.... Why not commit to the principle of the thing and insert all the bizarre documents that you think ought to be there?” asks Washington Post humor columnist Petri (Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why) in this absurdist collection. From Aaron Sorkin’s version of the Gettysburg Address (“Walk with me over this battlefield, Stacy”) to John and Abigail Adams’s frustrated attempt at sexting via transatlantic letter (“I am removing my thick woolen greatcoat of sound construction”), Petri leaves few milestones of U.S. culture and politics un-lampooned. There’s also the original draft of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” as it was dictated to him by a dog (“Human! I’m with you on sofa/ Where you’re muddier than I am”), and a version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in which Hunter Thompson forgets to bring the drugs (“ ‘Maybe we should see Debbie Reynolds,’ my attorney suggested”). Though the satire is more eccentric than biting, Petri pricks the egos of many legendary men, noting, for instance, that Henry David Thoreau’s mother brought his laundry to him at Walden Pond. Rooted in Petri’s impressive knowledge of the American past, this is a trip.

Starred review from March 1, 2023
This second collection of satirical essays from Washington Post humor columnist Petri (Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why, 2020) features previously unknown historical documents of somewhat dubious provenance. Dubious, as in Petri made them all up in the spirit of offering slightly tilted insights into momentous events and shedding unique light on various relationships. Each entry runs a few pages and introduces an alleged artifact that addresses a circumstance that's political, social, literary, or personal (Romance! Sex!) in nature. Some selections are wry, some preposterous, some laugh-out-loud funny; all are inventive. A transcript of the time Emily Dickinson was a contestant on Family Feud. Field notes from the rhinoceros sent undercover to keep an eye on Theodore Roosevelt and his proclivity for big-game hunting. And who wouldn't want to read Walt Whitman's poem extolling the virtues of the YMCA? Some sting a bit, like when the Sesame Street crew storms Omaha Beach on D-Day, but this intriguing collection will definitely keep audiences entertained, whether they read through cover to cover or dip in for the occasional treat.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.