When it comes to arts and culture, Denis O’Neill is a renaissance man: poet, magazine writer, essayist, novelist, singer-songwriter, scriptwriter for film and TV, and producer for public TV. Nearly all of those talents are on display in his latest book, Musings 2022: Rants, Riffs, Politics, People, Poetry and a Few Things Irish.
As the Southern California–based author notes, his facility with different mediums stems from his familial background. “I am an apple that fell from a writer’s tree,” he says, outlining the prolific career of his father, Charles, a Lincoln and Civil War scholar; journalist; short-story writer; songwriter; editor of the Dartmouth humor magazine, the Jack-O-Lantern; and friend of Ted Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss).
“I guess I just love to tell stories,” he says. “In any genre. Fiction and nonfiction. Put words in the right order. It’s fun to take that basic storytelling passion [and] then craft to the requirements of different mediums. I find it joyful, diverse, and very fulfilling. It might also cater to a short attention span.”
Regardless of their attention spans, readers—especially those attuned to current affairs and / or interested in progressive politics—will thrill to many of O’Neill’s incisive and acidic observations. This impressive collection of thoughts on the current state of the world is an engaging mix of skepticism and hope. The author reserves much of his venom for the exemplar of our divisive, dirty politics: Donald Trump. O’Neill is appalled, he says, that “a person as demonstrably despicable as Donald Trump—twice-impeached, indicted 91 times, pathologically lying and spewing racist notions, a convicted felon and soft orange-hued ball of bad (evil), self-serving behavior—has tens of millions of admirers and followers in America....How historians explain his appeal in the years and decades to come will be of great interest to me. I am mystified by him and by his hold on so many mostly undereducated, white citizens.”
In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews praises the author’s consistently page-turning style, noting that “the bulleted format, and the author’s considerable writing abilities, will make these reflections gripping reading for all but the most partisan audiences. O’Neill has no patience for bigotry, the denial of science, or armed insurrections aiming to overthrow the United States government; bizarrely, all three of those things have vocal defenders in 2023 America, so his book won’t appeal to everybody. But even detractors should find something to enjoy in the more general humor tackling everything from baseball to bears.”
Though he covers a wide range of topics, O’Neill always circles back to politics and the insidious influence of both MAGA rhetoric and disinformation in general:
Tragically, we know from our own experience over the past five years that even when there’s a free press and a diversity of news sources, the BIG LIE can fester and grow as surely as if there were a news blackout similar to Russia’s...
The fact that 59% of the Republican Party...believes Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election in the face of massive, irrefutable evidence to the contrary, is a dispiriting revelation that access to the truth is never the same as acceptance of the truth.
How we bridge that gap, I am not sure. It’s what worries me most about our future. It makes me think we are retreating to the dark age when scientists, teachers, and other truth-tellers were stoned, clubbed, burned at the stake, drawn-and-quartered and marched through the streets as heretics. It is one thing when the first casualty of war is the truth. It’s another thing when truth, unfogged by war, is dead on arrival for so many citizens in democracies and dictatorships alike.
On a news program last night, a young Ukrainian girl, fleeing her country, was asked by a reporter, “How does this happen in 2022?” She told him, “Humanity is in crisis.” I wish I could say otherwise.
Nearly every page contains similar sharp-edged insights, whether he’s offering charming observations about his Irish heritage or expressing justifiable outrage—as well as ongoing hope and inspiration—regarding the continuing invasion of Ukraine. “Every day I am appalled by Russian war crimes,” he writes, “and inspired by Ukrainian heart and backbone.” Within O’Neill’s litany of astute yet dispiriting cultural commentary, virtues like hope and inspiration can be difficult to detect at times, but it’s a testament to the skill with which the author lays out his thoughts and arguments that readers will find plenty of both.
“A friend told me [my musings] are like the great diarist Samuel Pepys’ diaries about life in Britain centuries ago,” he says. “Culture, politics, personalities, history, everything affecting daily life. Somehow, given all the darkness in the world—from Springfield, Ohio, to Gaza to Ukraine—I remain a glass-half-full person. I still believe the sun will come up tomorrow. But it will only be brighter if the citizens who live in this world are willing to participate in making it a better place....I believe that decency and civility will ultimately succeed (and return), but we are but one country in the world battling anarchist forces within. There is a cultural war to be waged and won before it gets less dark here. The November 5 presidential election is one ominous and critical milestone in our near future.”
Despite O’Neill’s well-informed takes on some of the most vital issues of the day, as well as his accurate takedowns of many of the bad-faith actors in the political arena, he is quick to point out that he’s not interested in running for public office: Still, he says, “I love and am animated by all things politics. (It began on my shoulders the day before the 1960 Kennedy/Nixon election when Kennedy stopped in Bridgeport, Connecticut, for a whistlestop tour en route to Boston where he would give his night-before-election speech at Boston Garden. There was a crowd of many thousands, and I have never forgotten the ‘warble’ of JFK’s Boston accent as he spoke over a loudspeaker to the gathering. I was hooked.”
Readers will be hooked, too, by the author’s concision and razor-sharp wit, informed by his Irish heritage and years of experience as a screenwriter; fans of this book will also be excited to learn that O’Neill plans to continue his “musings” beyond the “aftermath of the November election (and all Trump’s attempts to overthrow the results).” Ultimately, he says, he will finish with “four installments chronicling this most important, civil-war-like passage in our national history, from COVID-19 through the end of Donald Trump.”
Throughout, O’Neill is unapologetic about the malevolent forces that directly threaten democracy, both in the U.S. and abroad. However, he is also adamant about the importance of clear communication in addressing our myriad societal ills. “Realizing my ability to communicate and promote my ideas probably reaches a greater audience if I am not directly advocating that Trump be dropped, honey-covered, into a giant cauldron of starving rats,” he notes. “I like to think that wit and humor (as practiced by our greatest politicians and writers) is the most effective way to promote a particular point of view.”
Eric Liebetrau is a freelance writer and editor based in Charleston, S.C. He is a former longtime managing and nonfiction editor of Kirkus Reviews, and his work has appeared in a variety of national publications.
