by Zev Chafets
First published 2010
Zev Chafets first encountered Rush Limbaugh's voice while driving down Woodward Avenue in Detroit. The braggadocio and outrageous satire struck him as completely subversive. Nearly twenty years later, Chafets gained rare access to Limbaugh's "Southern Command" in Florida. The radio host opened his home and personal world, introducing Chafets to family members, close friends, and even his psychologist. Their conversations covered politics, sports, music, show business, religion, and American history. After Limbaugh became a primary target of the Obama Administration, he initially resisted a full biography but eventually agreed to extensive interviews. He exchanged over one hundred emails with Chafets, revealing personal history, private thoughts, fears, and ambitions. Chafets argues that while Limbaugh's public persona remains instantly recognizable, his background and private life are widely misunderstood. The author presents Limbaugh as simultaneously a master entertainer, public intellectual, political force, and complex individual who has challenged mainstream media and Democratic Party figures from the Clintons to Obama while claiming to operate with "half his brain tied behind his back."
Genres: biography, american, non-fiction, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: complex-individual
Setting: Detroit, Florida
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
240 pages · Hardcover · Sentinel HC