It's an uneven but impressive assortment that showcases both the strengths and idiosyncrasies of Hitchens' work...Like Vidal, Hitchens is a master of the acerbic apercus. His contrarianism can be refreshing, though it sometimes feels calcified.
He mixes the loquaciousness of the barfly with the fluency of the literary artist, and could not pen a dull sentence if he tried. Despite this virtuosity, the essays collected here are notably slighter than his usual output. A number of the political articles are too much Washington parish pump stuff to be really worth reprinting.
