A biography of super-lawyer and political fixer Roy Cohn, whose shocking exploits over four decades have shaped the modern political era, most prominently the ascent of Donald Trump.
From the get-go, Bird provides a thorough and readable account of Cohn’s astonishing life and career ... An elegant retelling of the lurid Cohn story, but it’s also something more ... As much as American Scoundrel is a biography of Cohn, it’s shadowed by another, equally important, story: that of his parasitical relationship with the American establishment Bird has studied for so many years. Cohn would rail against it, positioning himself as its ultimate antagonist, while nevertheless feeding off its power brokers.
Far from coming across as distant history, American Scoundrel fairly vibrates with contemporary relevance thanks to its subject’s crucial part in the creation of Donald Trump. The authors demonstrate how Cohn’s playbook has been coopted chapter and verse by the present occupant of the Oval Office ... As the authors of American Scoundrel write with scant exaggeration, their subject 'planted the seeds of America’s descent into political folly in the twenty-first century.'
Offers an effective portrait of Cohn’s role in New York society in an era when sleaze and respectability were not clearly delineated. There is a great deal of salacious gossip; readers will learn far more than they ever wanted to know about Cohn’s sexual habits. Yet despite the extent of Bird and Goldmark’s research, the portrayal of Cohn as an unbounded narcissist misses some of what his life might tell us about the right-wing politics of his era.
