Book Review: Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff

Published 9:30 am Saturday, January 27, 2018

Given the amount of news coverage for Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” one may already feel like the book has been read before ever opening the cover.

After all, reporters seemed to parse Wolff’s book page by page.

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The book portrays the Trump Administration as a White House in chaos. 

An administration that spent its earliest months divided into three essential camps vying for Trump’s reportedly short-attention span: Reince Priebus, the chief of staff representing the policies of establishment Republicans, political guru Steve Bannon representing the tenets of the alt-right, first daughter and son-in-law Ivanka and Jared Kushner representing the ideals of New York Democrats, according to Wolff.

To send messages to Trump regarding policy wishes or offer detrimental perspectives of the other factions, each group targeted specific media they knew the President watched, according to Wolff.

The majority of leaks came from top officials of different camps within the White House.

Despite the early warring within the administration’s factions, Trump stands as a one-man faction all by himself. Wolff paints a picture of the President as a reluctant winner, a candidate who didn’t plan to win but rather hoped a presidential run would strengthen his brand, a giant, truculent baby man, unable to control his text outbursts, flitting from one topic to another, lighting upon anything that seems to offer him instant gratification or audience approval.

Criticism has claimed Wolff made several mistakes in the book.

“Fire and Fury” also reads like a breathy celebrity tell-all.

Still, as the media glare and rush to back order copies proved, the book is contagiously readable. And even with the possibility of mistakes, the context of the book feels right.