In her author’s note for “American Canto,” Olivia Nuzzi clarifies that the book is not a tell-all about Donald Trump or politics. Instead, she presents it as a reflection on “life in America as I have lived and observed it,” exploring themes of reality, character, and love of country. Nuzzi takes the book’s title seriously, noting that she has been reading Dante.
However, Nuzzi’s reflections on the country range from the banal—observing that it is violent, divided, and image-obsessed—to the bizarre, such as quoting JonBenét Ramsey. Her tone is one of insistent sincerity, particularly regarding Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “I loved his brain,” she writes of the man reported to have had a parasitic brain worm. “I hated the idea of an intruder therein.” In a move of striking grandiosity, she uses the previous winter’s Los Angeles wildfires as a symbol for her own professional downfall.
While Nuzzi suggests Trump turned his circle into actors, the book reveals she has long viewed herself as playing a role. “American Canto” briefly mentions her childhood acting career, recalling how on September 11, 2001, she was dressed to audition, “playing the child.” As a teenager, she launched a music career as “Livvy,” a self-described “multi-media character.” A 2010 press release for her single “Jailbait” framed the song as a commentary on “the role of the underaged, hyper-sexualized girl in society.” This approach of simultaneously participating in and critiquing a phenomenon mirrors the “have-it-both-ways” irony that critics have identified in her reporting, where she catered to tawdry interests while maintaining an air of knowing detachment.
Nuzzi portrays the public revelation of her relationship with Kennedy as a role she was “cast in against my will,” and she objects to the image of herself as a “leopard-clad star reporter.” This claim is challenged by an account from Ryan Lizza, who claims to have found a “tabloid-style news story” Nuzzi wrote describing herself as a “blonde beauty” and “one of the most famous political reporters in America.” The book itself often reads like self-penned fan fiction, with passages such as, “He threw himself onto the bed, his pink shirt unbuttoned, revealing my favorite parts of his chest.”
Publicly, Nuzzi laments her media notoriety, stating, “That I have made of myself what others have determined to be Good Copy is a horror.” Yet, she also displays a clear enthusiasm for the mechanics of journalism, offering detailed explanations of terms like “opposition research” and “getting ahead of a story.” This contradiction is highlighted when a reporter contacted her about the Kennedy rumors. Nuzzi dismissed the story as “such bullshit”—but insisted her denial remain off the record.
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