Publishers Weekly
06/21/2021
This colorful survey from biographer Beran (The Last Patrician) traces the rise and fall of the “WASP ideal” from 19th-century New England to the burial of George H.W. Bush in 2018. Identifying the animating impulse of WASP culture as the belief that “patrician privilege... could be justified through meritorious public service,” Beran spotlights American political dynasties including the Roosevelts, Kennedys, and Harrimans, and delves into the role that elite institutions including Groton and Harvard played in shaping America’s ruling class. Henry Adams’s romantic travails and “failure as a public man” are discussed, as are the philanthropic inclinations of J.P. Morgan and other WASPs who “were never more comfortable with art than when it was safely shut away in a glass case.” Beran also depicts Franklin Roosevelt’s efforts to chart a middle course between “reform WASPs” and “Wall Street WASPs” during the Great Depression, and describes how the Vietnam War, public scandals, and scathing takedowns by outsiders including Truman Capote permanently tarnished the WASP image in the 1960s. Beran stuffs the account with juicy details, though the constant name-dropping and tossed-off literary allusions can be aggravating. Still, this is a rewarding study of a vital yet slippery aspect of American history and culture. (Aug.)
The New York Times Book Review - George F. Will
Praise for The Last Patrician
“Beran is such a lively writer, and such a risk-taking thinker, that the sparks he promiscuously strikes from his literary flint are, cumulatively, illuminating. Beran's slender meditation on Kennedy's truncated life has an unusually high ration of provocations per page. Some readers will angrily throw it across the room. But they will retrieve it, and continue reading, avidly.
William Manchester
A remarkable achievement. It offers new insights into the character of Robert Kennedy, perhaps the most enigmatic public figure of our time.
The Boston Globe
"A luminous look at Kennedy and at the country he wanted to lead.
The New York Times Book Review
Praise for Murder by Candlelight
“A fascinating new book. Beran asks us to consider our own hearts of darkness, why we're obsessed with murder stories, why this obsession matters, and what it suggests about us as a culture and a species. A witty and engaging narrative, Murder by Candlelight is at once psychological thriller and philosophical meditation, murder mystery and literary analysis, written in elegant and pointed prose. In one skillfully wrought volume, he cleverly feeds our appetite for horror even as he probes this appetite.”
The Times (London)
"Fascinating. WASPS is a delight: meticulously researched, exhaustive, slightly bonkers, a smorgasbord of delicious and outrageous details."
The Spectator
Beran’s knowledge and research are prodigious. He has mined a rich seam of material and unearthed some gems. With acerbic asides and witty one-liners, he paints a vivid picture that praises or punctures these superior persons. The book’s liveliness and spark made it stimulating and illuminating.
The Wall Street Journal
Beran darts back to the 18th century and the arrival of Gothic literature, to authors such as Walter Scott and Coleridge, who used poetic language to convey the emotions of violence. Beyond such literary matters, Beran dwells upon real-world murder cases with a special emphasis on three. Beran relishes these stories and tells them with vigor and brio.
Washington Post
Beran is an exquisitely gifted writer. His fluency and command feel like products of full immersion in his subjects’ lives and psyches — the books they read, the heroes they worshiped, their affinities and proclivities, achievements, affairs, shames and disappointments. [He] seeks to connect dots others wouldn’t see.
