Of the many rallying cries of the Trump era, “this is not normal” was perhaps the most salient. Ben Terris’s book follows sideshow operators moving toward the main stage with Washington in flux, writes Alex Shephard in Reviews.
. The majority of these were accounts of manic disorder, constitutional crises and general incompetence — of the center not holding — though conservative publishers dutifully produced a raft of volumes arguing that all of that was good, actually. Most of those books were eminently forgettable — I reviewed dozens of them at the time and can remember almost nothing from them today — but they sold like hot cakes because everyone was desperately trying to understand what wasgoing on.
Some of Terris’s characters, such as Walters and Purley, are questioning their place in a political order that’s gone berserk. But most see the chaos as an opportunity. “Disruption” is perhaps the most overused word of the 21st century, but Terris is particularly adept at depicting the sense of permeability — and the resulting opportunity to rapidly gain prominence and wealth — that has followed from both the rise of social media and the rise of Trump.
“The Big Break” suffers to an extent from its limited time frame — nearly its entire narrative takes place in 2022 — and from Terris’s largely commendable commitment to showing and not telling. He trusts readers to draw their own conclusions about his cast; similarly, the book resists grandiloquent statements about the nation’s capital, but it fails to live up to its title. There is no sense of a true fracturing, or an equally powerful and coherent counter-establishment.
What Terris does provide is an intimate, entertaining and damning portrait of the way Washington works, not just now but maybe always. His focus on marginal figures also means many of his sources — though often unreliable — are far less buttoned-up than you get in most political books. Terris is also a rarity among political reporters: He’s funny. While he typically sits back and lets his characters damn themselves, as a narrator he has a light and witty touch.
Alex Shephard is a staff writer at the New Republic, where he has covered politics and culture since 2015. His work has also appeared in New York, GQ, the Atlantic, the Nation and other publications.The Gamblers, Party Animals and True Believers Trying to Win in Washington While America Loses Its Mind
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