Dennis Perrin (1)

Neither a conventional essay collection nor an organized sociological study, Dennis Perrin's exploration of the role of sports in American culture is easy to become engrossed in and hard to know what to do with, Perrin is a writer in the tradition of Carl Hiaasen and Matt Taibbi: ferocious, insightful, eloquently profane, and capable of being funny as hell even when he's making a dead-serious point.

This book of 220 pages is four long (roughly 50 pages each) essays on subjects like race, violence, and commercialism. Each of them is engaging reading, and each of them makes fascinating points, but at the end of each chapter -- let alone at the end of the book -- I couldn't tell you what larger point he was making or say for sure that I have a deeper, more complete understanding of American sports mania and its place in the larger culture. That said, I don't regret the time spent reading it, or discovering the existence of Dennis Perrin in the process.… (meer)