From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble Review
"Let's take a drive," exhorts comic sociologist-cum-journalist David Brooks in this delightful study of middle-class suburbia -- a sprawling, borderless frontier as far removed from the soulless literary terrain of John Cheever as the land of Oz. So we pile into the minivan (what else?) and cruise along; and as we move across the great expanse from hip semi-urban neighborhoods to exurbs and beyond -- past diverse cultural landscapes peppered with "lesbian dentists, Iranian McMansions, Korean megachurches," and more -- it soon becomes clear that we have left all those Stepford Wife stereotypes of conformity far behind. Once caught in a gravitational pull toward major cities, today's suburbs are free-floating decentralized zones, each with its own distinct identity.
Brooks makes a waggish tour guide. The same wit and humor that enlivened Bobos in Paradise (his delectable skewering of the "information age elite") is abundantly evident here. But beneath his sly lampooning of Trader Joe's, Banana Republic, über-moms, SUVs, and National Public Radio lurks serious sociological scholarship. We discover some startling truths about the great suburban dispersal and how middle-class America chooses to live at the start of the 21st century. Examining our relentless drive toward achievement, our materialism, and our attitudes toward work and family, Brooks uncovers what really lies at the heart of our restless national character: not -- as our detractors claim -- crass materialism or cosmic attention deficit disorder but rather our idealistic belief in the existence of a better future. Anne Markowski
From the Publisher
Take a look at Americans in their natural habitat: guys shopping for barbecue grills, doing that special walk men do when in the presence of lumber; superefficient soccer Ubermoms who chair school auctions, organize PTAs, and weigh less than their kids; and suburban chain restaurants, which if they merged would be called Chili's Olive Garden Hard Rock Outback Cantina. Are we as shallow as we look? Many around the world see us as the great bimbos. Sure, Americans work hard and are energetic, but that is because we are money-hungry and don't know how to relax.
But if you probe deeper, you find that we behave the way we do because we live under the spell of paradise. We are the inheritors of a sense of limitless possibilities, raised to think in the future tense and to strive toward the happiness we naturally accept.
On Paradise Drive, at once serious and comic, describes this distinct American future-mindedness that shapes our personalities and underlies our beliefs.
The New York Times -
Joyce Maynard
In the same way that Malcolm Gladwell, in The Tipping Point, pulled off the virtuoso accomplishment of making whole cloth from threads as diverse as the resurgence in popularity of Hush Puppies shoes and the breakthrough idea responsible for the success of "Sesame Street," Mr. Brooks has pulled together a vast range of source material -- from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Power Point presentations to Cigar Aficionado magazine -- to create a picture of the forces that have shaped our national character.
Publishers Weekly
For readers who are feeling glum about America and its place in the world, or those who despairingly look at our culture's cookie cutter, strip mall consumerism and flash-bang glitter, Brooks (Bobos in Paradise) offers a balm with his latest pseudo-sociological treatise. More a way to look at what he sees as America's problems (e.g., our thirst for enormous gas guzzlers and super-sized soft drinks) with optimism than a series of suggestions of how to fix them, this book by the New York Times op-ed columnist tells readers it's okay to consume, consume, consume-so long as they look toward the future while doing so. At times playful and sarcastic (though less funny than intended), the book jumps from statistical analysis to cultural observation to defense of Bush's foreign policy, all without much of a mooring in essential context or factual citation. This is deceptive optimism; one long essay insisting our society's problems are not so big, provided we talk about them in the right way. While engagingly written and insightful at points, Brooks's affirmation is unlikely to resound with anyone outside the conservative choir, and even less likely to spark change-or even a desire for change. Still, it's nice to feel loved-if not by the rest of the world, than at least by this author. Agents, Glen Hartley and Lynn Chu. (June) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Brooks, a NY Times op-ed columnist, the author of Bobos in Paradise, and a self-described comic sociologist, here accomplishes an admirable feat: he thoughtfully constructs a critique of American middle-class suburban culture while entertaining the reader with clever, laugh-out-loud observations (it's Jerry Seinfeld meets Modern American Sociology 101). Like Michael J. Weiss's The Clustered World and Barry Schwartz's The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, Brooks addresses consumerism in America. But according to him, it is the "Paradise Spell," the utopian American philosophy, that drives us to work harder, change addresses more often, and acquire more possessions than citizens of any other nation. Brooks puts middle-class America on the analyst's couch and concludes that we are not as shallow as we seem; instead, we are motivated by a tenacious optimism, a belief in the golden future just around the bend. For better or worse, Americans are dreamers, filled with hope, forever pursuing fantasies, and historically and uniquely obsessed with a complicated future. This is a persuasive and inspiring thesis, even if it's not completely convincing. Recommended for public and academic libraries of all kinds.-Lori Carabello, Ephrata P.L., PA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
New York Times op-ed columnist Brooks, whose Bobos in Paradise (2000) anatomized "the new upper class," now sends up and celebrates America's middle class in all its vulgarity and yearning. The war with Iraq, according to the author, revived foreign images of the American as the "Cosmic Blonde" of the international community-i.e., an infuriatingly blessed global bimbo. Yet Brooks finds that the nation is "infused with a utopian fire that redeems its people, despite the crass and cynical realities." His account considers what life is like in the several varieties of suburbia; why Americans race so feverishly through life; and whether our purported shallowness is grounded in reality. At the root of American life from its beginnings, he finds, is a pursuit of perfection that can be seen in both large social movements (periodic moral crusades) and even individual creations of all manner of inventions, management procedures, and motivational mantras. Brooks surveys how middle-class Americans' aspirations manifest themselves in child-rearing, college life, shopping, and working. All this ceaseless striving is not without cost: non-religious schools, for instance, come in for rueful criticism for not instilling a coherent moral system. Frequently using trade-association data as well as his own "comic sociology," Brooks delights in overturning conventional wisdom. For example, far from the stereotype of clusters of conformity long derided by intellectuals, today's suburbs, he observes, contain "lesbian dentists, Iranian McMansions, Korean megachurches, nuclear-free-zone subdevelopments, Orthodox shetls with Hasidic families walking past strip malls on their way to Saturday-morning shul."Sandwiched between the cheeky one-liners (the alternative weekly, with their uniformity of format and point of view from one city to the next, "is the most conservative form of American journalism") are astute readings of the contemporary scene (golf, he believes, is central to the middle-class American's "definition of what life should be like in its highest and most pleasant state"). From a cuddly conservative: a genial ode to America that only a snooty French deconstructionist could fail to find amusing and enlightening.
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