FROM THE PUBLISHER

David Mamet has said that if he hadn't found a life in the theater, it is very likely he would have become a criminal. In Jafsie and John Henry the master improviser takes on a range of roles and personae in a lively and personal way. Mamet in this diverse collection turns his unique lens on subjects ranging from houses to Hollywood producers. As the writer turns fifty, he not only shares his reflections on the nature of creativity and the challenges and rewards of aging but delves into his most intimate obsessions. From a description of the labyrinthine psychology of poker to sharp sallies on moviemaking gibberish and the meaning of macho, Jafsie and John Henry is knit together by Mamet's unique perspective and inimitably spare wit. The perennial outsider, David Mamet gives us an inside look at the unique world of an American icon and an unromantic perspective on the changing nature of creativity in an artist's life.

FROM THE CRITICS

Newsday New York

Manet walks a line between provocation and enticement, and its precariousness almost always compels attention.

Publishers Weekly

The first of 27 essays in this grab bag of characteristically taut pieces is called "Looking at Fifty," and perhaps no words more aptly foreshadow the pieces to come. For this latest effort by Mamet, largely a collection of previously published work, is one part wistful reminiscence, one part curmudgeonly (and often Luddite) rant and one part seasoned social commentary. Mamet, often taken to task as a playwright and screenwriter for his superficial characters, here flashes impressive depth. In "L.A. Houses," he skewers cultural philisitinism by describing a director who wanted him to write a screenplay of Moby-Dick from the point of view of the whale. Remembrances of a Chicago boyhood (walking aimlessly down a highway), his first car (a devastatingly powerful Karmann Ghia) and a tragic game of poker (in which he unconsciously threw a hand "to punish myself") give the book a refreshingly personal feel. And his anti-technology comments, despite smacking of a quaint traditionalism (he's prone to criticizing the pervasiveness of "information" by asking "Where is the romance in it? Where is the discovery?"), are generally thoughtful enough to merit serious consideration. He proposes, for instance, that our adherence to machines stems not merely from a desire to make our lives easier but from a fundamental need to be enslaved by another power. Rounding out the collection are essays about the roots of anti-Semitism and an Anglophilic gem, "Scotch Malt Whisky Society," in which the playwright uses his trademark ear for dialogue to describe the verbal thrust-and-parry of Scotch tasters in Edinburgh. Cleanly written, by turns profoundly personal and just plain profound, Mamet's collection offers the spectacle of a fierce intelligence at work and at play in the world. (Apr.)

Library Journal

On turning 50, Mamet has collected 27 miscellaneous essays that record some of his experiences and opinions, from the sweater he prefers to a few thoughts on producers. The first essay, "Looking at Fifty," describes the "challenge-for-cause" list he uses to choose the films he watches: if a film has an element on the list, such as a slow-motion sequence of lovers, he has nothing further to do with that film. Readers might do well to develop such a list for collections of essays. Mamet is best known as a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and theater and film director; he has also written poetry, essays, and novels. Fifteen essays in this collection have appeared previously in slightly different forms. Comprehensive collections on film, theater, or American literature might be interested.--Nancy Patterson Shires, East Carolina Univ., Greenville, NC

Gibson - Times Literary Supplement

[T]hose looking forward to Mamet's trademark terseness and highly quotable wit will find much to enjoy.

Kirkus Reviews

A thin collection—in content as well as size—of essays from filmmaker, playwright, novelist, and he-man epigone Mamet (The Old Religion, 1996 etc.). In slightly different forms, these essays have appeared in magazines such as Esquire and Men's Journal. While the pieces span a variety of topics, from the vagaries of movie-making to hunting to favorite items of haberdashery, they are almost all inflected by Mamet's darkening, sepulchral gloom about turning 50. The saving and damning grace of these essays is that they tend to reveal the true quality of their author's mind. While Mamet may write some of the sharpest dialogue, you know, sharpest dialogue around, as a thinker he is far too impressed and obsessed with the idea of David Mamet. In his own mind, he shines brave and clever and witty and ironic, but far too often he comes off more as a tinhorn, Hemingway-manqué construction of Viagra masculinity. While his own frequent epigrams and aperçus (e.g., "it's real nice to live in a real nice house") usually go awry, he does have a pitch-perfect Bartlett's ability to slip in apt quotations or citations from others. He's at his best on the timeless savageries and inanities of Hollywood, the mindlessness of producers, the low lot of writers. He merely plods along in his forced metaphysically-aspirant appreciations of beloved objects (scotch, knives, guns, art pottery). And he is at his worst whenever he's dredging up fragmentary recollections of his youth or trying to play the philosopher. .