Outside Looking In: Adventures of an Observer

by Garry Wills

"One of the country's most distinguished intellectuals [and] one of its most provocative."
- The New York Times

Bookish and retiring, Garry Wills has been an outsider in the academy, in journalism, even in his church. Yet these qualities have, paradoxically, prompted people to share intimate insights with him- perhaps because he is not a rival, a competitor, or a threat. Sometimes this made him the prey of con men like conspiratorialist Mark Lane or civil rights leader James Bevel. At other times it led to close friendship with such people as William F. Buckley, Jr., or singer Beverly Sills. The result is the most personal book Wills has ever written.

With his dazzling style and journalist's eye for detail, Wills brings history to life, whether it's the civil rights movement; the protests against the Vietnam War; the presidential campaigns of Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton; or the set of Oliver Stone's Nixon . Illuminating and provocative, Outside Looking In is a compelling chronicle of an original thinker at work in remarkable times.

Genres: Biography, Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, Essays, History, Politics

208 pages, Hardcover

First published October 14, 2010

About the author

Garry Wills is an American author, journalist, political philosopher, and historian, specializing in American history, politics, and religion, especially the history of the Catholic Church. He won a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1993.
Wills has written over fifty books and, since 1973, has been a frequent reviewer for The New York Review of Books. He became a faculty member of the history department at Northwestern University in 1980, where he is an Emeritus Professor of History.

Reviews

[Elliot Ratzman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Garry Wills is superman: classics prof. by day, prolific Pulitzer winning journalist and historian, also by day. He is my favorite conservative to read—conservative by early 60s standards, i.e. liberal Catholic—reading him I’m confident that I’m in the company of a learned, decent and trustworthy intellect. Wills writes with uncanny skill about American history, presidential politics, Catholicism and classics. His annotated translation of Augustine’s Confessions inspired me to (try to) learn Latin. This is a short memoir of his early years as best friend of William F. Buckley, ending with Wills’ opposition to the Vietnam War. Here his journalism brings us great sketches of Nixon, Goldwater, Carter, Studs Turkel and Hillary Clinton. There are better intros to Wills’ journalism (Lead Time is a good collection) but for people who will appreciate stories of Murray Kempton and the reading habits of presidents (George HW Bush apparently had none, Nixon’s were interesting) this book is a gem.

[Faith McLellan · Rating 5 out of 5]

For all bibliophiles and those passionate about politics and journalism.

[Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you hobnob with celebrities, opera divas, and movie directors, and if presidents ask your advice and try to impress you, and if you get arrested voicing your antiwar position and thereby damage your friendship with William F. Buckley, Jr. -- then you are not an outsider looking in. This passive observer stance may fit Wills's nature and self-conception, and he's certainly a humble-seeming man, but please. The Garry Wills of Lincoln at Gettysburg and Papal Sin interests me, but this memoir-as-vignettes bored and irked me. I might rather recommend Roger Ebert's Life Itself: similar format but offered more humor and self-awareness.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful, rich, interesting, intelligent memoir. Mostly comprising of events witnessed and persons known.
A rich medley of subjects, ranging from John Waters, Studs Terkel , Hillary Clinton to William F. Buckley are recounted in warm, fascinating portrayals. Most interesting is the authors’ anti-Vietnam era reminiscences and especially, the events in Memphis immediately after the assassination of Martin Luther King. He wrote for the National Review, Harpers and especially Esquire. His book on Lincoln is now an influential milestone in American rhetorical and intellectual history.
The author is a great writer, whose moral (Catholic) probity managed to piss off everyone from the traitorous Alger Hiss to the aristocratic Buckley - and to paraphrase Tom Paine, clearly lived ‘a life of some point’.

[John Harney · Rating 4 out of 5]

An irresistable gallery of first-rate landscapes -- Memphis after the assassination of Martin Luther King; urban America in the late 60s; Washington during one of the anti-war protests -- and portraits of people we thought we knew enough about, William F. Buckley Jr. and Beverly Sills, and people we wish we knew more about, like the author's wife, Natalie, and his father, Jack Wills. The gallery also includes finely wrought miniatures of presidents -- Nixon, Carter and the first George Bush -- Dick Cusack, the talented father of John and Joan; and movie people, Oliver Stone, Paul Schrader and even Joseph Fiennes.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really a memoir and reminiscences about important people in his life. Published in 2010, this book has a much simpler prose style than the last Garry Wills book I read which had been published in 1972. As one would expect, Wills is honest about his impressions of people: Nixon was one of the most intelligent politicians he knew, Jimmy Carter did lie to Wills and he devotes a whole chapter to William F. Buckley. I enjoyed it.

[Christina Belt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I inherited this book from a retiring teacher and thought I’d read it since I had it. It’s not a bad book by any means, just wasn’t written for me. It contains many references to politicians and opera singers etc. that I was wholly unfamiliar with without any context. However, I did find the chapter on the death of MLK interesting and moving, as well as the chapter on movies.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I chose this audio book because I had heard of Garry Wills and his non-fiction writing. An interesting listen -- Wills' recollections of events and people during his long career as a journalist and writer. I would like to read something Wills has written.

[Aloysius · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good look at a man who had a chance to talk with the great men (and women) behind the events of the past 40 some odd years.

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

A revelatory tale of and by the author concerning his life in essay form.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the memoir I was hoping for, but a collection of anecdotes about Presidents and others encountered during his career as a reporter.

[Michael Temple · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wish it was twice as long

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gary Wills in an intelligent conservative intellectual who in this book of personal reminiscences talks about his memories and impressions of America, mostly political, over the past 40 years, as a reporter and author. He says of his conservative inclinations, "One of the reasons I am a conservative is that I do not believe that 'cannot' should be removed from the dictionary. A recognition of limits is important to human life, and especially to human politics. On the other hand, a defiance of human limits is an exhilarating prospect, and there is, I suppose a little of that in me that I would not remove, even if I could."
That passage gives a sense of he claims to be a devout Catholic, yet he has written a devastating indictment of the Papacy, PAPAL SIN, STRUCTURES OF DECEIT (I had read it and agreed with all of it). He has known and reported on every American president since Jimmy Carter, of whom he has a surprisingly high regard. Carter was the first president, he claims, to recognize and take effective steps to decrease our dependence on foreign oil, but most of his policies were dismantled by the Reagan administration.
He likes Hillary Clinton immensely, but is not so enamored of her husband whom he sees as a pretty calculating politician. He asked Clinton once what book had made the deepest impact on him. Clinton hesitated for awhile and then asked, "Which book had the most impact on YOU?" He told Clinton that was not the point, adding, "He is such a politician that I suspected he was taking his time to choose the work that would make me admire him." Hillary didn't hesitate for an instant, saying it was THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV. Why? "I read it in high school, and it opened ranges of spirituality that I never dreamed of." Bush I, when asked the question, said he didn't have time to read much, but CATCHER IN THE RYE had impressed him when he was in prep school. Not quite accurate as Salinger's novel wasn't published until a good ten years after George Walker was in prep school Wills thinks he must have heard his son talking about it and gotten confused.
On politicians and reading, Wills comments, "Politicians live for contact with people. They lose the gift for contemplation, or research, or simple reading. Being alone with a book is a way to die for many of them. Dukakis was the great exception, and I presume still is, since he was always a professor first and not a politician." (I'd add, one reason he was not elected president).
Overall, a good book - mildly gossipy and certainly entertaining.

[Herb Reeves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wills has an admirable quality and calmness of reflection (both of which ought to be emulated by more of us) that allows him to evaluate a person without the encumberance of ideological blinders -- All within reason, of course; Hitler's fondness for dogs and children, for example, will never be sufficient to tip the scales in his favor.

"Outside Looking In" is an enjoyable survey of people and events Wills has met and known during his career, and provides some welcome gems of insight.

Until I read Wills' account of a meeting between Barry Goldwater and a former speechwriter-turned-radical, Karl Hess, I'd never been able to understand the esteem in which Goldwater, who opposed the Civil Rights Act, was held by even his most extreme opponents. Wills tells of sitting next to Hess on the floor outside the Senate during a sit-in when Goldwater learned that he was in the crowd. He made his way over to Hess, pulled him to his feet and asked why he hadn't been by to see him.

"I'm afraid your staff would be pissed at me," Hess said.
"Well, piss on them. You're my friend."

Now I understand.

Wills supported Civil Rights and protested the war in Vietnam, for which he was arrested and jailed. The latter resulted in a 30-year estrangement from William F. Buckley, Jr. which was resolved only a few years before his death. (In a few areas Buckley, it seems, couldn't shed his own ideological blinders.)

But given the causes for which Wills has fought, it did come as a surprise that he briefly mentioned in a section on his father that he was a conservative. This, when he's often referred to as a liberal.

A student and teacher of Greek, however, Wills is acutely sensitive to the root meanings of words, and notes the careless use (by Buckley) of the word "oxymoron" to mean contradiction, which has infected its popular understanding and usage. (I'm as guilty as anyone.) At the root sense, according to Wills, it actually means something "surprisingly true," as in "Pyrrhic victory," or "sweet sorrow" (Shakespeare).

So, while I'm willing to acknowledge that Wills is the conservative he says he is, I have to insist that he uses the word in a sense substantially different from its current usage.

Or, to slip back into Buckley's useful misunderstanding, he's a liberal conservative.

[Vivian Valvano · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why would I read a book of essays by Garry Wills? Because anyone who made Nixon's enemies' list is worthy of my attention. Seriously, he is notably conservative, but: 1) he spoke out forcefully and protested actively against the Vietnam War (see Nixon, enemies' list); 2) he went to jail during Civil Rights protests; 3) he is an erudite scholar of classical Greek and an extremely intelligent man, yet he does not come across as egotistical or arrogant; 4) he writes delightfully about his love for and relationship with his wife; 5) he has a sense of humor about himself; 6) although he is a religious and devout Catholic, he does not come across as a religious fanatic; 7) although he became a close friend of William Buckley (whom I did consider egotistical and arrogant and a Catholic religious fanatic and a person with no sense of humor about himself), they became estranged for 30+ years as a result of Wills's opposition to the Vietnam War; 8) in addition to his work as a writer and journalist, he has been a dedicated and serious teacher. Back to Buckley: he and Wills eventually reconciled; Wills seems to take great pains in one essay here to underline how Buckley was not a snob and was good to his friends. Hmm. Protesting too much? Methinks Wills does some bending over backwards to try to make Buckley palatable. From what I know (and I certainly had no personal acquaintance with the man - thank goodness), Buckley was despicable on many counts - racism and a nauseating, preposterous sense of superiority and entitlement topping the heap.

[James Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I grow up I want to be Garry Wills. (Well, when I grow up, I'd also like to be Adam Gopnik, but a guy can dream, right?) Wills, a noted public intellectual, has for a long time been a journalistic academic and an academic journalist. The result, as his title indicates, is that he's always been an "outsider looking in": too much of a popularizer to be a "real" academic; too much of a scholar to be a populist journalist. The fact that the is a practicing Catholic also makes him an outsider to Protestant America and secular New York.

This book is not really a memoir but more a collection of vignettes of people and places. As Wills recounts a lifetime of writing and friendships, you realize he's sort of the Forrest Gump of highbrow journalism.

The book'ss tone and style is a tad pedestrian, but it is structured in a spiraling intimacy, with later chapters moving into more intimate portraits of those closest to him: his father Jack Wills, Studs Terkel, Bill Buckley, and his wife of 50 years, Natalie. (One of my favorite lines comes early in the book: "I am so square that I have been married for fifty years to one woman, Natalie, the only person with whom I have ever had sex. I agree with Hilaire Belloc: 'It is well to have loved one woman from a child.'")

[Nanette Bulebosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've long admired Garry Wills' writing. I've always taken a special interest in him, in part because he's from Chicago and in part because he writes about subjects that strike an emotional chord with me - Catholicism, Lincoln, Jesus - and in part because his essays are always among the most readable and interesting in the New York Review of Books.

This book is probably his most personal yet. He tells about his life, from childhood on, and his experiences as a journalist and as an academic. We get an affectionate portrait at William Buckley, who recognized Wills' talent even while disagreeing with his politics. We learn more about Nixon's suspicious nature - the guy really was just plain weird. And we get inside, personal tidbits about Beverly Sills, Father Berrigan, Judy Collins, Dr. Spock and Martin Luther King. He writes movingly of his coverage of MLK's assassination in Tennessee, and the several personalities who immediately took an active role in nourishing MLK's legacy. There's a wonderful chapter about Studs Terkel, and what was behind his success in getting so many people to open up to them (he was a respectful and patient listener, for starters). And there are warm descriptions of his not-totally sympathetic father Jack and his supportive wife.

[Evanston Public Library]

Imagine sitting on a porch with your soft-spoken but well-traveled grandfather, listening to stories--stories of flying from Baltimore to a Memphis morgue on the night Dr. King was shot, of late-night hobnobbing with Jesse Jackson and Studs Terkel and the Cusack family and other hobnob-worthy Chicagoans, of yachting and writing with Bill Buckley, of getting arrested at the 1968 Democratic Convention with Dr. Spock and Judy Collins. Now imagine that this grandfather is not an activist or schmoozer, but a respected professor--a professor of Greek no less--who is able to tell these stories not just in colorful terms, but in terms of intellectual history. This is scholarly journalism, and journalistic scholarship--and a scholar-journalist's adventure writing. Imagine finally that the scholar-journalist-grandpa's final story is of his courtship of your grandmother, with details ranging from bookish to, um, nonprofessorial. (Jeff B., Reader's Services)

[Kevin A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd book--Wills describes himself as a perennial outsider, a bookworm whose own story is not interesting enough. So he writes about others--his wife, Bill Buckley, Richard Nixon, Studs Terkel.

The most revealing chapter is about his father--a man who never read, gambled, a real operator who abandoned the family, then, implausibly, remarried his mother years later. It doesn't require much analysis to see in Wills's life a conscious rejection of his father. He became an intellectual, a moralist, a supporter of Civil Rights, a devoted family man, rejected his fast buck materialism, etc.

One can't help but think more could have been made of these conflicts, as well as Wills's falling out with a surrogate father figure in Buckley. But perhaps this is material for the biographer, not the autobiographer.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Garry Wills considered himself an outsider...growning up a bibliophile in a non-reading environment. But his intellectual curiosity and literary prowess allowed him to be on the periphery of many events and in the inner circles of many famous people. While he recorded these events in his many books, magazine articles, and columns, this book offers the background of many of those stories. Wills was as comfortable with Bill Buckley as with Studs Terkel and it's nice to know that he and Buckley reconciled in Buckley's last years. A nice book to read after working my way through his political and religious books.

[JerryDeanHalleck · Rating 2 out of 5]

Shocked at how superficial, scattered and badly written this is. Makes Garry Will's previous autobiography "Confessions of a Conservative" seem like Boswell's Life of Johnson. Reads like magazine articles dropped into a book, without much rewrite or editing.

Most interesting tidbit? Wills was great friends with Stalinist crone Liliian Hellman. Seems they argreed on everything except Alger Hiss. Wills had doubts about his innocence, Hellman was 100 percent sure HIss and been framed by Hoover/Nixon. Even after Weinstein's "Perjury" came out Wills was still so favorable to Hiss, that he had the former Soviet Spy address his College class and treat him favorably.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Garry Wills. He is my favorite intellectual, whether he is talking about Thomas Jefferson, St. Paul, John Wayne, Catholicism, American politics, or Richard Nixon--he is honest, straightforward, and learned in his approach to every issue. This book is a reflection on some of the people he has known, including Buckley, Goldwater, Carter, Studs Turkel and Hillary Clinton. I am biased in some ways as I went to college with Wills' younger children and I actually have met him--he is as wonderful in person as he is on the page.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Garry Wills' moving and illuminating reflections on his life working with and covering such individuals as Nixon, Martin Luther King, Hillary Clinton,John Waters, Jack Ruby, Studs Terkel, Bill Buckley, as well as his thoughts on Catholicism and some of the major events of the American 20th Century. I sat amazed reading this understated and beautifully written memoir at the self-effacing genius who crafted the words in it.

[Jeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been familiar with Garry Wills writing through his books on Catholic religion. I wasn't as aware of his extensive political/social writing. From covering the 1968 Democratic convention to the death of MLK, to Jack Ruby to Beverly Sills... the man has seen it all. He's an expert on Nixon, but writes about opera and movies and books just as easily. I"m not sure I'd encourage folks to run out and buy the book but if you stumble on it,it's a fascinating read.

[Lois · Rating 3 out of 5]

I heard about this book on NPR (I think) and although I wasn't familiar with this person, I decided to read the book mainly because he is a Christian (as am I). Anyway I found the book interesting, although I didn't not recognize many of the names, especially the opera singers. As a political junkie, I did recognize the politicians he discussed.

[Margaret Heller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Garry Wills starts out explaining what a dull, bookish, diffident sort of person he is, and then spends the rest of this memoir telling you about his crazy adventures and how he's met tons of famous people. But in a bookish kind of way. I really like bookish stories about famous people in the 1960s-70s, so I enjoyed this.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some very interesting chapters and sections on interactions with famous (and infamous) people. Some historical circumstances Wills found himself in went over my head and I had to brush up on "current events" from the past 50 years. Yes, I'd agree that Wills is incurably Catholic in a way we all ought to be.

[Steve Kierstead · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice. Not the most penetrating writing I've read from him, but well worth the time.

I think my favorite chapters were the ones about Studs Terkel and about Natalie. I recall reading some of the same Studs Terkel stories in a memorial Wills wrote that appeared in the New York Review just after Studs died. Wonderful!

[John Benson · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an academic and reporter, Garry Wills had a chance to get to the personalities of some of the newsmakers of the past 40 years quite intimately. The book mainly describes key personalities in politics, the arts, and his family. He writes very well and brings out key aspects of people so you feel like you knew what made them tick. A short and enjoyable read.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read any of his other books, but I enjoyed these personal essays.

Anyone who routinely reads in the bath tub has good points.

Of course, it helps the book that he has had an interesting life and writes well.