Book Details
| Title: | All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire | |
| Author: | Jonathan Abrams | |
| Times Read: | 1 | |
| Last Read: | 03.31.18 |
Other Books Read By This Author (0)
| Date Read | Note |
| 03.31.18 | An oral history of my favorite TV show of all time. This was like an automatic home run for me. The only fear I had was that there wouldn't be anything new for me to discover since I've already read and discovered everything there is to read and discover about The Wire. But, to my delight, there were a handful of tasty nuggets inside, like how Simon pitched a whole politics-centered crossover show called The Hall, or how severely the show had been cancelled several times during its run. I thought the reason for the delay before season 4 was that they were waiting for the weather since the election had to happen in November... seems pretty naive in retrospect but whatever. Instead, they were all the way done and then resurrected and had to get the entire cast back! I had also heard that Dominic West wanted to spend more time with his kid but didn't know the extent to which he was almost off the show completely. It's funny how the show itself somehow gets credit for having what is arguably its main protagonist barely in season 4, when in reality it probably wasn't designed that way at all! You also get another great thing with this book (and with all oral histories) which is a sense of voice from all the people involved. You can tell that Andre Royo is really chatty versus Ed Burns who probably doesn't like to talk at all. David Simon is super duper eloquent whereas Snoop speaks off camera just the same as she speaks on camera. I love that about this format. Unfortunately, you can also tell who didn't have much to say about the show or who's interviews were shorter than others, but i give great credit to everyone for showing up and to the author for going the extra mile to get what seems like everybody that's still alive. My only real complaint is that the author isn't a superfan like me. While it was great to get a deeper dive on all the major events of the show, my ultimate fantasy is to have a book twice as long as this that really delves deep on the minor events too. Since this show is so rooted in fact, i think pretty much every episode could be dissected by the writers' room in terms of where this came from, how that happened, why this character says this or that. i would love that so much... but I guess that's an unrealistic request. I'm still very happy with what I got here, and it definitely makes me want to watch the show again! |
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