This is an archly comic and ultimately chilling political novel on the effects of the dark money unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision on the American political soul as well as on the souls of individuals. Thoughtful, sharp-edged fare for the upcoming election year.
... reads like a 'how to' book that thousands of K Street connivers and Wall Street warriors don’t want the rest of America to see ... riveting stuff, though not at all far-fetched. Those who pick up the book get a view of how the sausage of today’s politics gets made: from grinding up the hearts and minds of ordinary American citizens ... Andre is a strong but narratively flawed character...His backstory allows Wright to shed light on important non-electoral political and social issues, but those same forces undercut his protagonist’s believability. And while some secondary characters personify other human hopes and foibles, they often feel too forced, too cliched, too narrowly used ... But when Andre’s on his fixer’s game, ah, the places Wright will take you in the politics that shape our lives, the backrooms, back alleys and bad dreams of our cash-hacked system, and he does so with a ticktock pace and knockout prose ... Ultimately, the plot of this propulsive, engaging novel is not about the corruption in South Carolina or the crisis of conscience that catches up with Andre. The plot of this novel about politics is the lives we’re living now in an America where being a heart-beating, air-breathing human is not enough to make you a fully empowered citizen.
... a political thriller – in the sense that it’s thrilling to observe – which boils national politics down to the local level, in all of its banality, and all of its profound human consequence ... Wright is also an exceedingly adept satirist, and his ability to lift the curtain on the manipulation of data, criminal justice, and the sociological behavior of voters is nothing short of fascinating ... a political novel in all the best ways, which is to say it’s about public affairs: messy and complex and never easily settled.
... impressive ... the denouement is anti-climactic, but by then it’s almost beside the point. The Coyotes of Carthage is not a thriller or mystery, but rather the story of how dark money twists those who administer it as much as those who are targeted by it. It’s also about the relationships that can form between unlikely allies ... While no one is wholly good, a few stand out for their humanity in this nuanced portrait of a southern backwater.
Wright explores the themes of loyalty, perception versus reality, corruption, and racism, balancing absurd situations and deep-seated issues with wry, self-deprecating humor ... Wright has created a sharply contemporary Faustian tragicomedy with parallels to the TV series Scandal.
Wright explores the fraught intersection of business and politics in his promising and caustic debut ... Pungent with dark humor and cynicism, Wright’s nuanced portrait shows how the campaign not only pulls apart the town but threatens to drive a wedge between Dre’s career ambitions and his humanity. This incisive satire introduces an sharp new voice.
This dark comedy about dark money confirms one’s worst suspicions about the political process while constantly confounding one’s presumptions about human behavior ... That this debut novel is written by an attorney whose specialties include criminal justice and election law adds doleful, acerbic authenticity to his scenario. Yet there is also alertness to the possibility of redemption and change even in the most polarizing of situations.
