Bastian Greshake Tzovaras reviewed American Savage by Dan Savage
Review of 'American Savage' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
First of all: I'm hardly neutral on this topic, given that my prior stance on most moralistic/ethical topics discussed in this book showed a huge overlap with the stance given in the book. So yes, it's preaching to the choir, but hey: I also like to get preached to once in a while.
With that out of the way: The book covers quite a range of topics: Amongst others universal healthcare, assisted suicide, the 'It Gets Better' project, gun control, Catholicism and Kink. If you've seen Dan Savage on This American Life, which you totally should, you will already know the chapters on the assisted suicide, motivated by the death of his mother, and the chapter on his stance on the Catholic church.
In my opinion those two chapters are among the strongest in the book. But you will notice that they are more or less a reproduction of …
First of all: I'm hardly neutral on this topic, given that my prior stance on most moralistic/ethical topics discussed in this book showed a huge overlap with the stance given in the book. So yes, it's preaching to the choir, but hey: I also like to get preached to once in a while.
With that out of the way: The book covers quite a range of topics: Amongst others universal healthcare, assisted suicide, the 'It Gets Better' project, gun control, Catholicism and Kink. If you've seen Dan Savage on This American Life, which you totally should, you will already know the chapters on the assisted suicide, motivated by the death of his mother, and the chapter on his stance on the Catholic church.
In my opinion those two chapters are among the strongest in the book. But you will notice that they are more or less a reproduction of the TAL contribution, which shows. The style of a spoken performance just doesn't fit print in all instances. As I'm not a close follower of Savage's work I don't know if this kind of re-mixing has been done for other chapters as well, but from the style it seems that way. At least it feels like it, due to nearly verbatim repetitions of certain phrases, so that more than once I had to go back a few pages. Just to make sure I didn't accidentally started re-reading stuff I already had read.
I also really enjoyed the chapter on how Savage ended up thinking that there are no bisexual males, how he got flagged as biphobic for it and why he came around on the topic. It felt like a sincere "Sorry, I was wrong, I based my false belief on a non-random sample of people which was stupid". Which is a thing I have a crush for, because seriously: what's more sexy than admitting that you were wrong?
If you don't mind the slightly repetitive writing (and don't are too familiar with Savages work so far) you should give it a try. Otherwise still have a look at his TAL contribution if you haven't seen it before.
