Fire and Fury, by Michael Wolff

Staff review by Chris Saliba

The hype around Michael Wolff’s shock expose of the Trump White House is well deserved. Fire and Fury is a wild, wild ride. 

The key drama at the centre of Fire and Fury is the struggle for influence in the White House. Trump is the central figure around which so many orbit, yet he has no political or philosophical centre. He simply bobs and spins around impulsively. Trump is bored by serious meetings, lacks concentration, won’t read important documents, acts without consultation, is child-like and basically uninterested in government. The quandary for senior staffers is to find some kind of narrative and direction despite the President's policy vacuum. Many staffers desperately tell themselves there must be some hidden master plan, somewhere. Yet none can be found.

Michael Wolff describes three main factions fighting for control of the Trump White House. Firstly there are the Bannonites, headed by Steve Bannon. He is someone who’s studied history and believes he’s created a radical new movement. Then there is Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner (Bannon variously describes them as "Jarvanka", the "kids" or the "geniuses"). They run with a group of Goldman Sachs types, more left leaning in their politics. This group hope they can pull Trump towards a middle course. Lastly there is the establishment Republicans, led by Reince Priebus, now former White House Chief of Staff. His faction believes they can guide Trump to take a traditionally conservative course. These three factions are constantly trying to corral the President, but he doesn’t sit still long enough.

The access that Michael Wolff was granted to the White House is in itself highly symbolic of how incompetent and ridiculous the Trump administration is. Why let someone like Wolff in to roam around and sit in on meetings? The biggest mystery is why Bannon spent so much time speaking so candidly to Wolff. You can only surmise that Bannon is ultimately a nihilistic figure, only happy with failure and self-destruction. Fire and Fury is Bannon’s long suicide note.

Political junkies will eat this book up. It's dizzying, chaotic events and rogue gallery of careerists, buffoons and adventurers make it read like the mad, circuitous fiction of Dostoyevsky. Its pages describe so much bustle and jostling and movement, yet strangely, so much inertia. This is an administration that doesn't know where it's going or if it even wants to go anywhere. Wolff draws together his knowledge of politics, media and business to make a riveting narrative of power without sense or purpose.

Fire and Fury, by Michael Wolff. Published by Little, Brown Company. ISBN: 9781408711392  RRP: $32.99

To sign up for our monthly newsletter, featuring new releases, book reviews and favourite articles from around the web, click here.