Tom Carson

Tom Carson won two National Magazine Awards during his time as Esquire‘s “Screen” columnist and was nominated twice more as GQ magazine’s “The Critic.” A longtime writer on pop culture and politics for publications including The Village Voice, LA Weekly, Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, and Playboy, he is the author of Gilligan’s Wake (2003) and Daisy Buchanan’s Daughter (2011), both novels.

Death of a Political Junkie

Tom Carson

June 19, 2019

For political junkies, keeping up with Trump's latest atrocity has become an ordeal, not their favorite drug.

Centered around a “bad boy” motorcycle, adolescent imagery from the 1950s invokes a sense of toxic masculinity.

Empire’s Children

Tom Carson

May 4, 2019

Issue no. 45

The Clearasil staining Mark Twain’s hands can never be wholly scrubbed away.

Mayberry Machiavelli

Tom Carson

November 4, 2018

Issue no. 42

A Face in the Crowd’s primary appeal is to the liberal audience’s sense of superiority

The Voice and Its Village

Tom Carson

September 7, 2018

When I think about my two stints at the now-shuttered Village Voice—for which I freelanced regularly from the late seventies to the late eighties, returning as a staff writer from 1994-1999—one unexpected but apt word that keeps popping to mind is “fecund.” My ...