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"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.… (més)
I have seen and enjoyed the movie starring Spencer Tracy a number of times before I read this book. Spencer Tracy was an excellent Frank Skeffington. I enjoyed the book though there were times when it moved a bit too slowly for me. In a sense, seeing the movie before reading the book may have taken something away from my enjoyment as I was able to anticipate the arc of the story and the ending.
Frank Skeffington is the mayor of a city (obviously Boston) who is running for re-election. He eschews using media in favor of personal politics with campaign stops at neighborhoods, funeral services and work places. He is surrounded buy an eclectic group of friends, allies and sycophants, who depend upon him for jobs and their business.
Depending on your point of view, one can view Frank Skeffington as a sympathetic man worthy of praise and emulation or a crass politician from the “big boss” era taking advantage of the taxpayers and constituents.
A very good story on big city politics whose time has come and gone… ( )
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. ( )
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. ( )
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès.Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
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You who are reading this novel for the first time - how I envy you Oh the delights in store - the send-up of old-time big-city Irish-American politics, the sustained literary pleasure, the steady laughter, the final tears. Since The Last Hurrah was published in 956, the title has entered the lexicon of American cliche. In the novel it refers to the final campaign of Frank Skeffington, the 72-year-old major of an unidentified yet identifiable Eastern city. "I got interested in the political set-up of an American city when in the Coast Guard during the war," Ed O'Connor told the New York Times. "My station happened to be in Boston. Before that I had been at Notre Dame with the sons of some Chicago politicians, and I suppose that started it." After the war O'Connor settled in Boston, where he worked as a radio announcer and newspaper freelancer for a hardscrabble decade until striking it rich with The Last Hurrah. Another like to Boston lies in Skeffington's resemblance to the Great Cham of Boston politics. But more on James Michael Curley later. -Introduction, Jack Beatty
It was early in August when Frank Skeffington decided - or rather, announced his decision, which actually had been arrived at some months before - to run for re-election as mayor of the city. This was a matter about which there had been public speculation for a good while: for, in fact, four year, ever since he had been inaugurated for what his opponents had fondly hoped was the last time. -Chapter One
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Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès.Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
"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.
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Frank Skeffington is the mayor of a city (obviously Boston) who is running for re-election. He eschews using media in favor of personal politics with campaign stops at neighborhoods, funeral services and work places. He is surrounded buy an eclectic group of friends, allies and sycophants, who depend upon him for jobs and their business.
Depending on your point of view, one can view Frank Skeffington as a sympathetic man worthy of praise and emulation or a crass politician from the “big boss” era taking advantage of the taxpayers and constituents.
A very good story on big city politics whose time has come and gone… (