If the Watergate scandal was a previous generation's
National Nightmare, then maybe the Clinton scandal was our National
Wet Dream, and who better to narrate it than the screenwriter Joe
Eszterhas? In American Rhapsody, Eszterhas, whose
credits include Basic Instinct and Showgirls, and
Charlie Simpson's Apocalypse, for which he was nominated for
a National Book Award, takes us through the events that threatened
to topple a president and left most of the nation's citizens with,
at the very least, a bad taste in their mouths.
Taking full advantage of his considerable
journalistic and storytelling talents, Eszterhas gives us every
fact, rumor, or innuendo surrounding the president's foibles in the
context of late century American politics and entertainment.
Here Washington and Hollywood do more than just flirt with each
other; they share the same bed. From scandalmongers Matt
Drudge (who began as a Hollywood gossip) and Ken Starr, to would-be
president paramours Sharon Stone and Barbra Streisand, to his
final, unimpeachable witness, Willard—none other than President
Clinton's talking penis—Eszterhas gives us the goods on the story
that nobody could stop talking about and, thanks to American
Rhapsody, will be impossible to think about the same way
again.