Larry Tye

This book pitches itself as a "biography" of Superman from a writer who has written many biographies by this point, but it's not a fictional character biography or anything like that; Tye's book covers the publication history of Superman, but not just comics, tracing the development of the character throughout all media, including radio, film, and television.

I know a lot about Superman, but not as much as is present in this book, and much of the facts that Tye presents in an ordered fashion show more I only possessed in a random scatter: the attempts by young Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster to create and refine their character, Action Comics's early unprecedented success, the way that Siegel and Shuster lost control of their character and finances. Much of the book is organized around those two's highs and lows, especially their attempts to gain recognition for their work. The end of their lives was saddening, but the battle continues, and I think that Tye presents it fairly evenhandedly, letting the reader draw their conclusions on who's right between Siegel/Shuster and DC Comics.

It's not just about them, though, but everyone who had some kind of impact on the Man of Steel, from his original publishers Harry Donenfield and Jack Liebowitz to director Bryan Singer. Tye has clearly done his research: this book draws on tons of comics as well as many unpublished letters and memoirs from key figures in the Superman story. Tye calls Superman America's "most enduring" hero, and he makes a good case: Superman has always been a key figure in American culture, never really going out of style, whether he appears in comics, on film, or even in Smallville. Superman is probably one of my favorite superheroes, and this is an incredibly strong tribute to him, filled with both fascinating facts and stirring tributes. A fun, worthwhile book. show less

Although I've been meaning to read this book since it was published, on the promise of the author having new primary source material to exploit, the reality is that spending 500 or so pages with "Tail-Gunner Joe" is always going to be a daunting prospect. Particularly when there are more pressing matters to deal with.

Still, having finally taken the plunge, I can tell you that this book is quite readable. Tye keeps matters rolling along, and the new documentary evidence does give one food for show more thought, even if already familiar with the contours of McCarthy's life and acts.

First off, this was a case of the times making the man before the man started making history, as while McCarthy might have been the hardest working man in Wisconsin politics in reaching the U.S. Senate, it would have availed him of nothing had "Young" Bob LaFollette not been out of touch with his electorate. McCarthy would have clearly been ejected from the Senate, obviously promoted to his level of incompetence, had he not latched onto the burgeoning "Red Scare" of the times. And McCarthy would not have been able to drag his reign of terror out as long as he did without enablers who saw him as a useful tool; a usefulness that ended roughly at the same time as the Korean War.

Two, though Tye is careful not to engage in too much long-range analysis of McCarthy's psychology, the impression I'm left with is of the proverbial addictive personality. From a young age forward, McCarthy lived on hyperbole and seeking the next thrill, and always needed the next shot of adrenaline, be it in the boxing ring, seeking higher and higher office, going on combat missions that he could have skipped out on, or finding a bigger target to take down. This is until his appetites wound up consuming him.

I'm also left wondering just how real other people were to McCarthy, as while the man probably wasn't a sadist, he did display zero empathy and could really be clueless about how he appeared to others. Looking at the climactic "have you no shame" moment in the televised 1954 "Army-McCarthy" Hearings, McCarthy's reaction to having overreached in attacking a young lawyer was confusion, unclear as to how this encounter was different from how he had previously conducted himself; though the ocean of alcohol that McCarthy was by then floating on didn't help.

Be that as it may, McCarthy's moment did pass, particularly with the Republicans losing control of the Senate, after which the man's physical deterioration accelerated. The question for those who still try to judge the man in the best possible light is how things might have turned out had Roy Cohn not been the dominant lieutenant in McCarthy's crusade. It could have been John Sirica, the future judge presiding over the matter of "Watergate," but it's likely no one could have saved McCarthy from himself in the long run; leaving the memorial of a ruined legacy, and a playbook for those who would follow in the senator's footsteps.

For those readers who feel the need to look at a modern accounting of McCarthy's career, but not quite as much as Tye is offering, there is an alternative in "Gossip Men" by Christopher Elias, who seeks to locate McCarthy, Roy Cohn, and J. Edgar Hoover in the media and sociological context of the time, and which parallels a lot of Tye's findings. As it should, considering that Tye is in this book's bibliography. show less

It feels fated that I should have finished this thickly-detailed and highly readable study of Joe McCarthy late in the evening of November 6, 2020, when Americans were anxiously biting our nails over the outcome of the close-fought presidential election. Last night, I read of McCarthy's downfall, censure, and ostracism, to his miserable death due primarily to rampant alcoholism and resulting liver disease, hallucinations, seizures, and possibly a malignant reaction to the drugs used to treat show more him. Today, Joe Biden has defeated Trump for the presidency after four years of behavior and character that could have been scripted by McCarthy himself, or by McCarthy and Trump's best buddy and advisor, Roy Cohn (who has to be one of world's most fascinating slimeballs).

The parallels are breathtaking. The lies, the greed, the tax dodging, the payoffs, the opportunism, the crusades against and vilifications of anyone who disagreed with them; the fast-food diets, the snotty nicknames to mock opponents, the utter disregard for anyone (friend or foe) or anything (that pesky thing called law), that gets in their way. Trump makes fun of someone's disability; McCarthy browbeats and torments a lowly clerk because once she spoke with a labor organizer who had the same name as an alleged Communist. Yet somehow these men both tap into a fear and anger - manufactured by the demagogues themselves - that only they can vanquish, and hordes line up to pay homage. Until, one day, they don't.

Tye has had unprecedented access to McCarthy's private papers, sealed by McCarthy's widow for 50 years, archives of journalists who covered McCarthy, interviews with surviving aides and their families, even his medical records from Bethesda Naval Hospital, where he spent a LOT of time for illnesses and injuries due to stress, overwork, and way way way too much booze. It was known in DC social circles that you never left Joe alone with any young females... he flirted with a friend's thirteen-year-old daughter, flipped her a quarter, winked, and said "Call me when you're 19." (Yeah, there's that too.) The bibliography is huge, the footnotes well-selected and formatted. This is a headlong, deep dive into one of our most notorious demagogues, fascinating and disturbing.

My husband's father served in Germany in Patton's Third Army. After the war, he would occasionally say, even when my husband was just a boy, that "It could happen here, you know." We learn from Tye that one of McCarthy's most-despised government agencies was the Army Signal Corps, which he targeted and battered repeatedly as a nest of subversion and Commie spies. Careers were ruined. My father-in-law was assigned to the Signal Corps. So now we know even better what he meant. Not only CAN it happen here, it DID. And let us hope we survive the latest attempt and do better. show less

Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy by Larry Tye is a comprehensive and well-written biography that reads almost like a novel, albeit a dystopian one at times.

I'll be honest, when I started the book I was anticipating almost 500 pages of interesting information but, like many long nonfiction books, presented in a rather dry manner. This is a period of American (anti)intellectual history I find quite intriguing so I was ready to just deal with it. But this book is show more engaging and kept me wanting to read more. No easy task when dealing with a figure that can stir so many strong, negative emotions. The writing is part of what made me round my rating up.

The other aspect that cinched the rating is that much of this information is newly released, which means no matter how much we have read about McCarthy or the period, there is new information here. Any book that can present new material from primary sources, and in an engaging manner, deserves a solid rating.

There will be a few points where the reader will feel a small bit of sympathy for McCarthy. That is a credit to Tye presenting such a vile human being in his full humanity and not just the inhumanity he showed to his fellow humans and countrymen. But that sympathy is short-lived and, for me, quickly overcome. Karma can be a, well, you know, especially when a cowardly bully loses the ability to bully. Then they become a shell of the person they were before, which was a shell of a real person. Yeah, I despise McCarthy and what he helped to do to this country, and I don't apologize for it.

We get glimpses at both McCarthy's personal life and the closed door behind the scenes wheeling and dealings on Capital Hill. While revisiting the events can stir anger and frustration, Tye keeps us focused on the larger arc of the book, namely McCarthy's life in total, which keeps us looking ahead as well as behind.

By ahead we also mean all the way to the newest bully on the block, little Donnie Trump. There is a highly publicized connection between McCarthy and Trump, one pathetic man named Roy Cohn. Between Trump's connection with Cohn and Roger Stone, we can easily see what type of snake Trump is: part McCarthy, part Nixon, and part feces.

I highly recommend this to those interested in this specific period of US history, as well as readers who enjoy well-written biographies. I think that even those on the far right who might still find some redeeming quality in McCarthy will find enough here to keep them reading, though beware, at almost 500 pages it is far longer than the Dr Suess books you're used to.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. show less