Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/1997/05/28/pearson_walks_on_the_wild_side_reviews_walk_on_the_wild_side_and_locked_in_the_cabinet.php
Wednesday, May 28, 1997
On assignment to interview Robert Reich , I ventured down to the Dartmouth Bookstore last week to buy the former Labor Secretary's newly published memoir entitled Locked in the Cabinet.
When I was paying for the book, the cashier remarked, 'Oh! My daughter just loves him. I think I'm going to get her this book for her 16th birthday.' I was confused, needless to say. The diminutive Reich certainly has his supporters, but I never knew denizens of the Spice Girls set were among them. I nodded politely and tried to think of a response. Fortunately, I soon realized that she was actually talking to the man behind me buying Dennis Rodman's Walk on the Wild Side. As I was leaving,,a trashy impulse seized me. I walked back into the store and bought Walk on the Wild Side. I read it that night in under 45 minutes.
I was struck by the books' similarities — an unlikely scenario considering the seemingly disparate nature of the books' authors. Robert Reich is 4'11' and white. An alumnus of Dartmouth and Yale Law, he taught at Harvard before his appointment as Secretary of Labor. Rodman is 6'8' and black. One of Southeastern Oklahoma State's finest, the Worm has distinguished himself as perhaps the best rebounder pro basketball has ever seen. Reich makes effete pronouncements on complex economic issues in taxes, tariffs, and trade. Rodman has sex with Madonna.
Somehow, despite all their differences, they have each managed to produce works remarkably similar — mostly in banality and lack of necessity. The prose in both books, however, is not bad. Reich's difficulties in economic policy circles have always been the inaccuracies of his analyses, not their eloquence.
Even Rodman, for his part, writes clearly. Granted, he did have the assistance of ghostwriter Michael Silver, and he will never be a Booker prize finalist. In a time of obscurity, however, such matter-of-fact writing can be a virtue.
The problem lies more in the confidence both seem to have that they are infinitely compelling individuals. In Reich's book, the end result spans more than 300 pages and four years of mostly meticulous daily details (On June 19 Reich had a 'smoked turkey with roasted peppers.' It was 'rapture.') Locked in the Cabinet eventually boils down to 3 simple ideas: Disgraced Clinton political consultant Dick Morris is a bad man. Anyone on the political right is, of course, bad. President Clinton is good. Reich's book, however, is deep compared to Rodman's. Rodman has generated rampant media attention by claiming in his book that he wants to change his name to 'Orgasm'.
If Reich has 3 ideas in his book Rodman has only two. Inhibitions about sex and booze are bad. NBA commissioner David Stern is really bad.
Neither provides much in the way of revelation. Reich apparently wants to avoid the kind of policy text he has written in the past. He attempts to go about life in
Washington trying to spend other people's money. The common denominator throughout is Reich's noble fretting about the plight of the poor, working and otherwise and he convinces himself that B loves people as much as he does. The pious posturing certainly gets to be a bit much: 'I tell myself B has the right values and wants the right things for this country.' He then urges B, his shorthand for President Clinton, to abandon the pursuit or a balanced budget in favor of 'investments in people,' otherwise known as higher government spending.
The first thing you notice about Walk on the Wild Side is the Herculean effort to extend the book's length to justify the 23 dollars. The text is huge; bigger than the large print Danielle Steele novels that grandmothers read. For those who tire easily of too many words, a generous number of pictures are also interspersed throughout, usually of Rodman in various poses wearing only orange and white body pain., Locked in the Cabinet mercifully limits pictures of its author to the back cover. Unfortunately, throwaway books such as these have become the staple of modern publishing houses. Slickly packaged, easy to understand, and even easier to sell, they move from the bestseller list to the discount racks in a few months, a fate I am sure both these weighty tomes will undoubtedly share.