Big Guns, by Steve Israel

Steve Israel served in the U.S. congress from 2001 to 2017, representing a district primarily in Long Island, New York.  So he knows the ways of Washington power broking, and has a great sense of humor about the quirks and habits of lawmaking and lawmakers.  His new novel Big Guns is hilarious and timely.

With gun violence in Chicago getting out of control, the mayor creates the Chicago Compact, a pledge to ban guns and ammunition and to divest from gun company stocks.  Other cities pick up the theme, leading to backlash and bitter divisions around the country.  How will the gun lobby respond?  In the interest of Americans' safety, they get their congressional enablers to introduce a bill requiring that all Americans be armed. (One has to be impressed with his timing.  Given the date of release of Big Guns, it was complete and at the printer well before the Florida school shooting and subsequent public debates.)

This national debate comes to a head in the tiny village of Asabogue, on Long Island.  This is the home of Otis Cogsworth, whose family business is one of the largest gun manufacturers, Jack Steele, a movie star whose action films reflect his love of guns, and Lois Leibowitz, the spunky activist mayor who proposes that Asabogue embrace the Chicago Compact.  By the way, Lois's daughter Sunny happens to be a gun lobbyist and the driving force behind the proposal to arm every American.  The nation's eyes and ears focus on the mayoral election showdown between Steele and Lois.  Hilarity ensues.

Israel combines his realistic descriptions of lobbying and the lawmaking process with crazy caricatures of people in government, the media, entertainment, and activism.  Their madcap activities and ill-conceived plans make a larger point about the way things work in government and society.  As Sunny had observed in her work as a lobbyist, partisanship isn't the driving force in Washington, but ego.  Democrats and Republicans are "all members of the 'Me' Party, with love of country but greater love of self."  And the vaunted ideals on which people get elected quickly take a back seat; "the world was shaped by brute power, not the power of ideals."

Israel's politics are ultimately pretty clear, but he skewers all sides of the gun debate and the political world.  Big Guns is laugh-out-loud funny no matter what your political leanings.  In my opinion, we need more writers like Israel, who survived in the belly of the beast and come away from his experience with enough good humor and good will left that he can share his insights, cynicism, and lessons with the rest of us.



Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!