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    The Last Hurrah: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Last Hurrah: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Last Hurrah: A Novel
    Ebook568 pages9 hours

    The Last Hurrah: A Novel

    By Edwin O'Connor and Jack Beatty

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “We’re living in a sensitive age, Cuke, and I’m not altogether sure you’re fully attuned to it.” So says Irish-American politician Frank Skeffington—a cynical, corrupt 1950s mayor, and also an old-school gentleman who looks after the constituents of his New England city and enjoys their unwavering loyalty in return. But in our age of dynasties, mercurial social sensitivities, and politicians making love to the camera, Skeffington might as well be talking to us.

    Not quite a roman á clef of notorious Boston mayor James Michael Curley, The Last Hurrah tells the story of Skeffington’s final campaign as witnessed through the eyes of his nephew, who learns a great deal about politics as he follows his uncle to fundraisers, wakes, and into smoke-filled rooms, ultimately coming—almost against his will—to admire the man. Adapted into a 1958 film starring Spencer Tracy and directed by John Ford (and which Curley tried to keep from being made), Edwin O’Connor’s opus reveals politics as it really is, and big cities as they really were. An expansive, humorous novel offering deep insight into the Irish-American experience and the ever-changing nature of the political machine, The Last Hurrah reveals political truths still true today: what the cameras capture is just the smiling face of the sometimes sordid business of giving the people what they want.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateApr 25, 2016
    ISBN9780226321554
    Unavailable
    The Last Hurrah: A Novel

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    • 3/5
      The last hurrah by Edwin O'Connor Newspaper worker watching the polls and attending meetings that the politicians are speaking at as they run for mayor. Others around town show up when the candidates are speaking about the town issues. After the heart attack the mans son comes to find out what happened and how others saw things occuring.
    • 4/5
      The Last Hurrah, published in the mid-nineteen fifties, was Edwin O'Connor's first success and his most popular novel. The plot of The Last Hurrah focuses on a mayoral election in an unnamed East Coast city. Veteran Irish, Democratic Party politician Frank Skeffington is running for yet another term as Mayor. As a former governor, he is usually called by the honorific title "Governor." While the city is never named, it is frequently assumed to be Boston. As a result of this novel, he was forever associated with Irish Boston—although he never did quite admit in interviews that he had used Boston’s greatest rascal, the often-elected mayor James Michael Curley, as the model for Skeffington. The story is told in the third person, either by a narrator or by Adam Caulfield, the Mayor's nephew. Skeffington is a veteran and adept "machine" politician, and probably corrupt as well. The novel portrays him as a flawed great man with many achievements to his credit. One of Adam's friends explains that the election was "a last hurrah" for the kind of old-style machine politics that Skeffington had mastered. Developments in American public life, including the consequences of the New Deal, have so changed the face of city politics that Skeffington no longer can survive in the new age with younger voters. And prophetically, for the first time, television ads win the day.Reading it as a teenager in high school I was fascinated with the realistic portrayal of politics and the impact on the city and family of the larger-than-life Skeffington. Both a popular and literary success when published, it remains in my memory as one of the best political novels I have ever read.