Reviews of two new books. Car Living: How to Make It a Successful, Sane, Safe Experience by A.J. Archer Touchstone Adventures, P.O. Box 1136, Lake Oswego, OR 97035 72 pages, $14.95 BEHIND THE WHEEL After hearing some kids in the Lake Oswego Trader Joe's--one was an employee--confess to each other that they both lived in cars, A.J. Archer took it upon herself to publish a guide for anyone who chooses to live in a vehicle. (As if they could afford the $14.95 it costs to buy the book.) A writer and sort of Jill-of-all-trades, Archer believes that car living is a viable way to make transitions in life, especially for people who suddenly find themselves without money or a home. In Car Living, she outlines some of the problems that car people encounter, such as lack of a bathroom, telephone, TV and kitchen. But her solutions are rather common-sensical: Use a public restroom or plastic bag, get voice mail, take up reading and buy fast food. Archer often turns motherly. "Stay away from sleazy places at all costs," she cautions, and, "It may be just an illusion, but I always feel safer in small towns." But she flies her true scofflaw colors by warning over and over against getting caught by the cops and by vaguely discussing which vagrancy, loitering and camping laws are difficult to enforce. Though Archer includes some interviews with people who have actually lived in their cars, the most interesting passages come from a heavily quoted 1996 Atlantic Monthly article by Ian Frazier, in which he describes traveling around the country in his van. In fact, the useful information in this slim guide could have been condensed into a short article, even a single sentence: Car living pretty much sucks. Susan Wickstrom The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party by Michael F. Holt (Oxford University Press, 1,248 pages, $55) WHIGGING OUT What Michael F. Holt attempts here would seem the height of academic lunacy. The University of Virginia history professor devoted 23 years of research to his monumental history of the Whigs--a year longer than the party even existed. Still, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party is perhaps the summer beach book for history buffs and political junkies who want to immerse themselves in a time that was utterly unlike our own yet rich with parallels to it. When Henry Clay and company started the Whig Party in the 1830s to counteract the "executive despotism" of Andrew Jackson, American politics were dominated by white middle-aged men whose high collars made them look like elegant whiplash victims. Women not only lacked the vote, but they desperately needed a good shampoo. Everything else Holt describes sounds hauntingly familiar. The Democrats learned it was easier to mobilize voters by appealing to their emotions than by boring them with specifics. Wacky splinter parties, much like Ross Perot's, gummed up the works rather than bringing about real political change. Finally, the electorate voted according to the economic winds of the moment and didn't waste a lot of time pondering the great moral questions that threatened to tear the country apart. The Whigs, in their small, imperfect way, tried to change all that, or at least turn it to their political advantage. When it appeared they couldn't get elected to the White House by putting forward their most qualified candidate (Clay) and sticking to the issues, they nominated a dashing war hero, William Henry Harrison, and replaced substantive political discourse with catchy campaign slogans and plenty of hard cider. Problem was, Tippecanoe caught a nasty cold at the inauguration and died one month to the day after taking office. Another Whig war hero, Zachary Taylor, died after serving less than half of his first term in the White House. Throughout Holt's book, such disasters typify the Whigs' courtship with power. For every Abraham Lincoln, who began his political career as a Whig congressman from Illinois, there was a Millard Fillmore. Fierce rivalries between party leaders and regional factionalism over such issues as slavery ultimately did the Whigs in, Holt argues. But like the Romans in Gibbon's voluminous history with a similar name, the Whigs did not "fall" so much as they were swept up and transformed in the whirlwind of their time. The Whigs' demise, after all, gave rise to the Republicans, who under Lincoln would preserve this nation through the greatest constitutional crisis in its history. Matthew Buckingham - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published August 11, 1999