Thank you! And yes, I also feel guilty liking the place. I guess it’s actually a good thing (from the point of view of being, uh, virtuous or something) that the MOA is kind of an unpleasant overwhelming sensory environment. Keeps me away. Then again, if Magers & Quinn or Moon Palace or Uncle Hugo’s doesn’t have it… the mall of America often does
Hoover is one of the great American villains and there ought to be more novels in which he pops up. He has a significant role in my own forthcoming novel.
(And in fact I’ve preordered that new novel of yours!)
Hoover does fascinate me. For a certain American generation he seems to have played a role not dissimilar to Napoleon in the imagination of 19th century artists and critics: a little emperor who created the world inherited by his bitter successors, tho Hoover is not usually singled out as a champion who defied any kind of ancien regime (or do people make that kind of case for him, e.g. his modernization of law enforcement?). Hoover seems like a strange little villain to me.
He was a consummate bureaucrat, who may have hated his intergovernmental rivals (and Bobby Kennedy) more than he hated communism. He was also, of course, queer, and obsessed with celebrities and his own celebrity. It’s those flashes of vulnerability that make him interesting.
great essay. I am also a big fan of the MOA B&N despite my sense I should be buying my books elsewhere
Thank you! And yes, I also feel guilty liking the place. I guess it’s actually a good thing (from the point of view of being, uh, virtuous or something) that the MOA is kind of an unpleasant overwhelming sensory environment. Keeps me away. Then again, if Magers & Quinn or Moon Palace or Uncle Hugo’s doesn’t have it… the mall of America often does
Hoover is one of the great American villains and there ought to be more novels in which he pops up. He has a significant role in my own forthcoming novel.
(And in fact I’ve preordered that new novel of yours!)
Hoover does fascinate me. For a certain American generation he seems to have played a role not dissimilar to Napoleon in the imagination of 19th century artists and critics: a little emperor who created the world inherited by his bitter successors, tho Hoover is not usually singled out as a champion who defied any kind of ancien regime (or do people make that kind of case for him, e.g. his modernization of law enforcement?). Hoover seems like a strange little villain to me.
He was a consummate bureaucrat, who may have hated his intergovernmental rivals (and Bobby Kennedy) more than he hated communism. He was also, of course, queer, and obsessed with celebrities and his own celebrity. It’s those flashes of vulnerability that make him interesting.
Thanks for ordering my book!
Yes agreed! He does seem like a person of great yearning and vanity