Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch

Written by David Mamet

Narrated by Jim Frangione

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

“Savagery appeased can only grow. Once you give in to it, it must escalate, like a fire searching for air.”

The man who won the Pulitzer Prize for GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, who wrote the classic films THE VERDICT and WAG THE DOG sounds his alarm about the Visigoths at our gates.

In RECESSIONAL he calls out, skewers, mocks, and, most importantly, dissects the virus of conformity which is now an existential threat to the West.

A broad-ranging journey through history, the Bible, and literature, RECESSIONAL examines how politics and cultural attitudes about rebellion have shifted in the United States in the last generation. By screaming down freedom of thought and expression, Mamet explains, we kill invention and democracy – the foundations of security and growth.

A wickedly funny, wistful and wry appeal to the free-thinking citizen, RECESSIONAL is a vital warning that if we don’t confront the cultural thuggery now, the commissars and their dupes will transform the Land of the Free into the dictatorship at which they aim.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Apr 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9780063159013

David Mamet

David Mamet is one of the foremost American playwrights. He has won a Pulitzer prize and received Tony nominations for his plays, Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed-the-Plow. His screenwriting credits include The Verdict and The Untouchables.

Reviews for Recessional

[wkalush · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Hilarious, terrifying and true.
Mamet is the Dunninger of our current dysphoric era. He knows what we are thinking even when we don't.
I highly recommend that everyone read this book three times.

[epic_alice · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great End to the series and really enjoyed them. After reading all of the 13 books I thought that 'The End was one of the best. I loved the mystery about Beatrice and who she was and only finding out in the last chapter. AThe only disappointment was that some of the questions that I had weren't answered about Count Olaf and Kit but I loved it all the same. Amazing adventure of the Baudelaire triplets and a great read!

[vladimiro sousa · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

what a strange book... so full of suspicious and trouble thoughts... so full of itself for his own content. what’s more paramount is this absurd defense of the divine inspiration of some 2500 events... its like defending "the flat earth society that has believers all around the globe".

[Ray Erny · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Regardless of your political views, the writing here is astonishing in its clarity and power. Provocative, thought-provoking, but above all, a lesson in history, literature, and philosophy that may change your view of what is happening around you.

[abiiharrisonn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

i know a lot of people hate the ending of this book / the whole series, but i really think it’s the most fitting way that it could have ended. it’s not lemony snicket’s style at all to lay out all the information and feed it to the reader, and make it explicitly clear what’s being said, but instead to leave at least a portion of it up to the reader to interpret and decide, which is exactly what this book does. i loved all of the call-backs to the previous books in the series, and spotted plenty of things the netflix series went on to take inspiration from. i loved re-reading this series and all of the nostalgia it provided ?.

[Nolan Davis · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Incoherent ramblings from your angry grandpa. I was hoping to hear reasoned ideas and thoughts that might challenge my currently held beliefs and broaden my perspective. But this book is heavy on the “bullying in schools was good for kids” and light on the why that might actually be true…

I could read as far as when the author claims coronavirus was manufactured by Wuhan University in a ploy to buy up entire blocks of American real estate. No, of course there was no research or evidence provided to support this claim.

If you’ve been looking for an extended Fox News segment regurgitated by an Alzheimer’s patient, this “book” is just the one for you.

[Alex Black · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Incoherent rambling with a political bias not even seen in most presidential biographies. Random historical facts thrown in alongside quotes of popular historical literary figures to sway the reader into thinking the citations somehow lend the overarching thesis credibility. Weak minded people beware: this garbage is aimed at you.
Feels like something that was thrown together with little time for a high school debate tournament

[unsquare_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A fine end to an excellent story, and yet I find myself wanting more. I suppose that is the ultimate sign of an excellent book/series. Sigh... ...That last Harry Potter book needs to hurry up and get here!

[cecrow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

After the first four repetitive volumes, Lemony Snicket (i.e. Daniel Handler) began to tell a broader and more interesting story about a contest between good and evil, which later emerges to be a schism in which what is good and what is evil is not always clear. Caught up in these events are the three Baudelaire orphans: Violet, Klaus and Sunny. A number of caretakers fail them (or are murdered) as they are shuffled from one home to another, until they find themselves accused of murder and must manage their own flight from the authorities. In the second-last book, Snicket hinted that the Penultimate Peril was in fact the series climax. It showed us that justice is neither simply black and white, nor is it easily obtained. We learned that life is not fair. And we learned (as we have learned in every book of the series) that the orphans must take responsibility for their own fate, rather than rely on anyone else. The series has been the story of a passage, in other words, into maturity, a message aimed at and well suited for its primarily young adult audience.

The End is merely an epilogue or afterward, the anti-climax. It is only a symbolic echo of what the conclusion already stated. Here, Snicket uses imagery to say the same thing again: ejection from an island that strives to be innocent, featuring an apple tree and a snake. Leaving the island represents the final passing out of all others' shelter and protection, the leaving behind of childhood. Ishmael tells the orphans that their parents once lived on the island but eventually left it to face and fight the evils of the world. Their parents became heroes, and responsible for raising children who could seek out wisdom of their own. It is easy to imagine a similar path awaits the Baudelaire orphans, especially given the baby who is now their responsibility. The takeaway is that if life is but a series of unfortunate events, it still remains for each of us to decide how we will face it, in what company, and what our own ultimate denouement will be.

[a9shelf9apart · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This doesn't even deserve a review.

A fucking disaster of a series.

[shahnareads · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well that was unexpected.

[bekkil1977 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Baudelaires and Count Olaf are lost at sea when they end up shipwrecked on a coastal shelf near an island. A girl name Friday takes the orphans back to the island, but leaves Count Olaf because he was rude to her. Hey, great! They're finally safe from Olaf (at least for a little bit). The island has a facilitator named Ishmael, who has some pretty strange rules and customs. He doesn't expressly forbid things, but everyone ends up bowing to peer pressure, and as a result, the island is a very boring place with no books, no mechanical equipment, and the same boring food every day. After another storm the orphans go back to the coastal shelf to help gather debris to see if there's anything useful, and they come across a very pregnant Kit Snicket. Olaf is also pretending to be pregnant, but Ishmael sees through his disguise and locks him in a cage. The islanders fight about letting Kit and the Baudelaires come back to the island, since all they seem to do is cause trouble, and they finally leave them on the shelf. A couple of the islanders come to the kids in the night to tell them they are going to mutiny in the morning and ask them for their help. Kit begs them not to, but the Baudelaires are unsure what to do. They go to the arboretum on the other side of the island where all the stuff that Ishmael has declared useless has been taken to look for weapons, but Ishmael discovers them and takes them back to the main gathering spot. Olaf tries to invade once again and Ishmael shoots him, releasing the deadly poison Olaf had been hiding. The kids find an antidote, but the islanders don't trust them and end up sailing off. They help Kit deliver her baby, a girl they name after their mother, and Kit dies from the poison. In the end, we discover the Baudelaires' mother's name was Beatrice, the mysterious love of Lemony's life who died in a fire.

[nx74defiant · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It did a good job of wrapping things up. A very satisfying ending.

[jennysbookbag.com · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I didn't want this series to end.

[beammey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While not my favorite story in the series, I think it was a fitting conclusion to it. It tied up a lot of loose ends while leaving the reader with more questions. Still very good and I would recommend the series. 4 out of 5 stars.

[rosenectur · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

With every chapter I became more and more afraid for how this series was going to end. Which is why I started the book in May and didn’t finish it until November. I kept putting it aside to read other things. However I was pleasantly surprised by the way the series ended. I’m not going to give any spoilers, but you take up reading the series you can go ahead and read it all the way through without a big let down.

[altheaann · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

What, you were expecting answers? I dunno, I wasn’t that surprised that Daniel Handler chose to end this the way he did. I think it’s in line with his sense of humor and his general philosophy. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a great artistic choice, but on the other hand, I kind of appreciated it: in real life, you don’t always get a happy ending, you don’t get the answers to all the questions, and not all the mysteries are solved. The whole point is that ‘the End’ is not the end, because there is no ‘end.’ That said, the book as a whole is a mix of refreshing and aggravating. Kind of like life. And hey, it’s not like Lemony Snicket EVER promised you a happy ending. He SAID you should stop reading…

[bryndahlquis · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well. It's the end.

The story is relatively simple, but Snicket beefs it up with a bunch of wordplay -- which is very enjoyable.

But the story is good. It's tragic, but that's to be expected. It's fairly beautiful too. It's written so well.

I don't really know what else to say.

[juva_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The long awaited conclusion to this classic children's series. A beautiful, complex ending that will surprise the reader. Lovely.

[nmhale_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The culmination of the Baudelaire's tragic lives is revealed, in (appropriately) the thirteenth book, which breaks the alliterative pattern in its simple but ominous title. When last we left the children, they were in a ship, in the company of their arch nemesis Count Olaf, fleeing from the Hotel Denouement. The beginning of this book brings the group into a terrible storm, which wrecks their ship and casts the lot of them unto a remote island. They soon discover they are not alone. They have landed on an island of castaways, who live by an unusual code under the guidance of their leader, Ishmael.

[jen6e6moore · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

That ending was entirely unexpected. It resolved almost none of the open questions, did not tie together more than two or three open plotlines, rambled, diverged, and generally wound up in a wholly surprising place. I loved it (but I can definitely see how you might not).

[marse_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

So what do we learn in the 13th and final book of "A Series of Unfortunate Events: The End"? We learn that every one has secrets, that no one is all bad or all good, that there is no safe place in the world, and that a series of unfortunate events keeps happening over and over again to everyone, even possibly, you. Not all questions are answered, but a great many threads are tied. After escaping the burning Hotel Denouement by boat, the children and Count Olaf reach an Eden-like island where everyone drinks the cocoanut cordial kool-aid and follows the instructions of a "facilitator" with feet of clay, or at least covered in clay. But there are grumblings among the natives (who incidentally are all named after characters who are shipwrecked, on an island or kingdom apart, or simply lost at sea, or all three). The children find some answers they are seeking in the arboretum under the apple tree of course. Snicket is up to his usual playfulness with literary allusions and wordplay. Though not everything is explained, it is a fitting, and somewhat hopefilled, conclusion to a very long, sometimes exasperating, but mostly entertaining series. I think this series would make a wonderful audio book(s) to listen to on long, boring drives across bleak landscapes.

[aliterarylion · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I was completely let down by the conclusion of A Series of Unfortunate Events. I waited 8 years for this? There was a multitude of unresolved secrets, confusing storylines, and dubious family trees. I feel that Snicket could have ended the series better, but I still appreciate the massive impact he made on my childhood. During long bus rides home, I would read this series and my love for reading grew each year. The ending to the Baudelaire saga was anticlimactic, but I thank you for my frequent visits to the library.

[katie1802 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this a few years ago and I remember being really sad it was over. These were my favourite books when I was small and I read them over and over. This was a brilliant conclusion and I hope these become great children's classics.

[chrisblocker · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a review of not only The End by Lemony Snicket, but of A Series of Unfortunate Events as a whole. As The End is the end of A Series of Unfortunate Events it seems a rather appropriate place to discuss the series as a whole. If you disagree, please remember there are two sides to a coin, though technically it could be argued there is a third, that is the edge, and clearly it has the best vantage point—it is from this perspective I write. I am writing on the edge, suckas.

So, Snicket had been building up to this. All the questions, plotting, characterization, drama, mysteries, warnings, heartbreaks, broken hearts, flashbacks, back stabs, disguises, inventions, definitions, apologies, meanderings, repetitions, translations, interpretations, acronyms, repetitions, mushrooms, tattoos, guardians, orphans, and evil eyes lead to this. Really, to this? I give Snicket a hand for pulling the philosophy card out here and trying something unique for a children's series of books, but really, what just happened? What's the point? So we've come full circle; also, there are many questions about the sheltering of children and what it means to have honor. But where's the story in all this? It's hard to complete any extensive series to the satisfaction of its fans. I commend Snicket for writing a series that didn't talk down to children, especially in these final volumes, but it felt to me that the author was trying too hard at something, and forgot the story. When the story of The End moves, it moves slowly. When the deaths in The End come, they come much too fast, without a pause for thought. These are characters we've invested in for many books, some for as many as thirteen, they deserve more than poor, poor, poor Uncle Monty whom we've been lamenting over for the past ten books.

So in wider scope of the series, The End wasn't that bad; it just wasn't right, at least I didn't feel it was. I didn't expect all my questions to be answered, or to find a happy ending, but I wanted more than this. My children agreed. Though they liked the book, they used words like “odd” and “strange” when discussing the story. You could tell they felt it was disjointed. And we all know that kids know what they're talking about as long as their parents agree.

A Series of Unfortunate Events final ratings:
The Bad Beginning – 3.1
The Reptile Room – 3.2
The Wide Window – 3.6
The Miserable Mill – 3.3
The Austere Academy – 3.4
The Ersatz Elevator – 3.3
The Vile Village – 3.1
The Hostile Hospital – 3.4
The Carnivorous Carnival – 3.9
The Slippery Slope – 3.6
The Grim Grotto – 3.9
The Penultimate Peril – 3.4
The End – 3.4

As for the series, I enjoyed it except when I didn't. It wasn't phenomenal or as funny as I had hoped, but it had its moments. I'd say the series largely picked up in the late middle books, when the conspiracy deepened and the humor became less forced. My children thoroughly enjoyed the series. When asked their favorite of the series, they offered votes of The Ersatz Elevator and The Slippery Slope. My youngest who is younger than the intended audience and only listened to the story sparingly would vote for any moment Sunny said something comical; he found no value in the story aside from Sunny. My own ranking of the series follows. Final thoughts: I spent my last year and some months on this? No, I spent it reading to my kids. I'm likely through with Snicket, though I'm still curious about Handler. I want more closure. I'm going to miss those Baudelaire orphans. That's it, The End.

A Series of Unfortunate Events Ranking:
The Grim Grotto – Book 11
The Carnivorous Carnival – Book 9
The Slippery Slope – Book 10
The Wide Window – Book 3
The Austere Academy – Book 5
The Penultimate Peril – Book 12
The Hostile Hospital – Book 8
The End – Book 13
The Miserable Mill – Book 4
The Ersatz Elevator – Book 6
The Reptile Room – Book 2
The Bad Beginning – Book 1
The Vile Village – Book 7

[amberthehuman · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Ultimately unsatisfying. What's the point of putting them in a safe situation if you've been telling us for the later half of the series that the evil is inside of them? And so many unanswered questions. I'm not sure if those questions will be filled by other material, but if I come across said material, I'll give it a shot.

[amerynth · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

After 13 books, I find Lemony Snickett's style more grating than amusing, but overall "The End" was a fairly satisfying conclusion to the series.

I probably would have enjoyed the series as a whole more if it were shorter (and far less repetitive.)

[jillkb · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The final book in the series was fairly satisfying -- the Baudelaire orphans try to escape the world of treachery on a remote island, but ultimately prepare to return to the world and face both its treacheries and its treasures.

[paperbackpirate · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Looking back on A Series of Unfortunate Events gives me some fond and some bland memories. Some of the books were great and some were a little tedious. As I picked up The End I worried about how it all was really going to end, as the author has been warning the reader in each installment that it's not going to be good.

The End finds the Baudelaire orphans on an uncharted island. I really liked reading their tale as they once again use their ingenuity, knowledge, teeth, and cooking skills to deal with a new dilemma. As I read it I began to hope...can it be that the Baudelaire orphans find peace on a lonely island? I won't spoil it for people who are reading or are going to read the Series, but I can tell you it's a fitting Lemony Snicket ending.

[benuathanasia · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not as disappointing an ending as Snicket seemed to imply it would be. I was very happy with the way things left off.