SOURCE: Rocca, Francis X. Review of Rockets and Rodeos and Other American Spectacles, by Thomas Mallon. American Spectator 26, no. 7 (July 1993): 64-5.

In the following review, Rocca praises Mallon for his skillful use of descriptive detail in Rockets and Rodeos and Other American Spectacles.

Readers of TAS already know the work of Thomas Mallon; eight of the twelve pieces in this collection [Rockets and Rodeos and Other American Spectacles] were originally published here. Ranging in length from four to forty-two pages, and in setting from Florida to Alaska, they amount to an eclectic survey of our country in the last decade, from the viewpoint of a perspicacious and sympathetic American spectator.

He is a spectator who notes the odd and telling details: that reporters at the U.N. use manual typewriters (or did, as late as 1989), that Secret Service agents pay cash for their lunch aboard Air Force Two...