Book Reviews

Cheeseburgers branded bland

By RICHARD J. SHEREIKIS

Bob Green. Cheeseburgers: The Best of Bob Greene. Atheneum, New York. N.Y.: 1985. 320 pages. $15.95.

IN the introduction to Cheeseburgers, his recent collection of pieces from Esquire and from his syndicated Chicago Tribune columns, Bob Greene says, "I'd like to think of my stories as snapshots of life in America in the Eighties — snapshots taken as I wander around the country seeing what turns up." What he strives for, he says, is "to tell the same story in the newspaper that I would want to tell my friends later in the bar."

These are decent goals, of course, but the 72 pieces in Cheeseburgers leave the impression that Greene has failed to set his sights high enough. His "snapshots," for the most part, come from a severely limited point of view; and most of his "stories" lack the punch or grit that have been the staples of the best Chicago columnists over the years, reading Cheeseburgers is like eating them: You'll feel too full to want any more, but you won't get much spice or nourishment.

The collection includes the normal fare of a regular columnist, broadened by Greene's celebrity connections and his unlimited travel and telephone budgets. They range from interviews with public figures like Richard Nixon and Meryl Streep; to nostalgic or sentimental examinations of icons of popular culture like View Masters and the Playboy Mansion; to clumsy attempts at humor (his grandmother's membership in the Playboy Club); to personal reminiscences about being cut from his junior high basketball team in Bexley, Ohio, and about working in the shoe-bronzing business which his father owned (which may explain everything).

As a "newspaperman" trained in a journalism school, Greene believes that simply trotting out these stories and snapshots is enough. But Greene is a columnist, and what we usually want from a columnist — what we've always received from the great Chicago ones — is some evidence of a core of values, a set of beliefs, even some healthy prejudices to enliven the writer's reporting. Think of Peter Finley Dunne's worldly skepticism and wisdom about Chicago life and politics; think of Mike Boko's street-smart judgments about the shenanigans at City Hall. Dunne gave us Mr. Boole; Royko gives us Slats Grobnik. Bob Greene gives us the journalistic equivalent of the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

He tells us of crises, sometimes, but they're the kinds that only a yuppie could care about. He tells us about the tribulations of going on book tours as a successful writer. He tells us what to look for in luxury hotels — in case we're ever on a book tour, presumably. He tells us of the guilt and torment a funeral director feels when he gets himself a platinum credit card. He gives us first-person testimonials about how hard it is to be Alice Cooper, the washed-up rock personality, or Richard Nixon, the washed-up national disgrace. But what does it all mean? What, if anything, does Bob Greene think or feel about it all? We don't need sermons, but we could use some idea of what the writer makes of all the cultural flotsam which clutters our country and dominates his columns.

A few examples speak to the quality of his rare explicit judgments: "All of a sudden, people seem to be in an insane hurry to get too much done in too little time," he tells us, portentously (in "The Twitching of America"); "[I]t's becoming increasingly hard to make sense of these times," he tells us earnestly (in "A Stranger in the House"); and, about 15 pages into his vacuous interview with Richard Nixon, he offers this astonishing insight: "I was getting the impression that some of his days were emptier than he would like." Greene's account of his relationship with Alice Cooper provides the best implicit revelation of his values. Greene, a personal friend of Cooper's, admits that Cooper's acts were "leering incitements of his young audiences," "... a forerunner of today's fascination with violence, harsh sexuality, and androgyny." Greene "can't exactly" disagree with a characterization of Cooper as someone who is "deliberately trying to involve these kids in sadomasochism," and "peddling the culture of the concentration camp" through his "anthems of necrophilia." Yet Greene clearly takes pride in his friendship with Cooper, calling him "one of the brightest, funniest people I ever met." As for Cooper's harmful effects on the kids who paid millions to watch his lurid spectacles? "[H]e was selling his young audiences what they were eager to buy," Greene blandly admits. But that was OK, by Greene's lights, because Cooper "was full of a sense of irony about it." Why mess with sorrow or guilt, when you can feel ironic?

But Cooper had more than irony going for him, according to Greene: "He was as appalled by [his fans'] acceptance of his show's bloodlust as was the most conservative fundamentalist minister; the difference was, even though he was appalled, he was becoming wealthy from it." If you can't be ironic, you can at least be rich (which seemed to have been Nixon's saving grace, in Greene's opinion).

So Bob Greene's appeal isn't hard to explain. His columns are, in fact, "snapshots of life in America in the Eighties," from a point of view that millions, unfortunately, share. His points of reference are rock music (especially the Beatles), network television and the celebrities spawned by the popular press (especially Time). He mentions no books, no writers he knows or admires, no serious journals or magazines he's read. His reminiscences tell us much about what it was like watching TV and listening to the Beatles in Bexley, Ohio, but little about the life and texture of the streets and alleys or people in the town. He owes less to Bexley than he does to the electronic global village. He's the ultimate baby boomer, in short — rootless, ill-read, bland and complacent. It's no wonder he's popular.

April 1986/Illinois Issues/27