Polarised, enraged and spiritually bereft, America under Donald Trump seems to be on the brink of failure.
In this dazzling debut, award-winning Australian writer Richard Cooke takes a close-up look at the state of the United States. From the theology of opioids to the aftermath of a mass shooting, from #MeToo to the paintings of George W. Bush, Cooke’s reporting takes him from an East Coast ravaged by climate change to the dangerous world of the US–Mexico border.
This is not another diner-hopping week in Trump country: it’s a radical effort to capture dissonant and varied Americas, across more than twenty states. In brilliantly rendered accounts of poets, politicians and poisoned cities, Cooke finds a nation splintering under the weight of alienation — but showing resilience and hope in the most unexpected ways.
Entertaining and terrifying in equal measure, Tired of Winning reveals the schisms and the clamour of contemporary America.
Richard Cooke is The Monthly’s US correspondent and contributing editor. His work appears in The New York Times, The Best of Longform, Best Australian Essays, The Saturday Paper, The Guardian and Australian Foreign Affairs. He is the current Mumbrella Publish Columnist of the Year, and was a finalist in the 2018 Walkley–Pascall Prize for Arts Criticism.
