A Rambling Book Review

I never know when it's too late to give a book recommendation. I mean, how long after a book has been published has the window closed on telling people they should read it? With movies it's a fairly easy call to make, as you get three obvious chances at it: you can recommend a movie you enjoyed while it's still in the theatres, when it first comes out on video and then if someone asks for your opinion because they are thinking of finally renting it. That's about it. With books, it's more of a crap shoot, because at some point the story becomes dated and it's a matter of figuring out when that is. This is especially true with books written about specific events. Eventually the story keeps moving along in real life, new facts come out and the book is just irrelevant. Who wants to read a book with old and dated facts? Still, with this disclaimer in mind I'm pressing forward because I just finished a great book, "The War for Late Night" by Bill Carter and even though it came out almost about 7 months ago and is about the incredibly fast-moving world of television, I still wanted to tell you how good it is.

The book centers around all the behind-the-scenes drama which unfolded during the process of shifting Jay Leno off "The Tonight Show" to make room for Conan O'Brien, followed by the NBC executives getting buyers remorse over the decision, trying to keep Leno with the network by moving him to 10 o'clock and essentially screwing the rest of the network up in the process. All the while David Letterman sits off to the side and throws spitballs at his former network. Since Bill Carter wrote the first book about how NBC came to pick Leno over Letterman for "The Tonight Show" in the mid-90s ("The Late Shift") he's extremely qualified to cover this topic, getting unbelievably candid access to everyone involved. Its almost as if this book could be treated as a sequel.

From what I can gleam from the back pages, it sounds as though this book was originally supposed to just be a story about Conan's elevation and Jay's retirement. But, then when all the other rating problem came up, the terrible "Jay Leno Show" experiment at 10 o'clock was announced because Leno never actually wanted to retire and eventually Conan felt so disrespected he left the network, Carter was just in the background, furiously taking notes and ended up with a much better story. You can tell Carter has a journalism background because he spends a majority of the book trying never to take sides and just presenting all the facts. The whole thing reads like one giant, captivating article, which is to say it's really well-written.

Because Carter tries not to take sides, presenting everyone's story equally and allowing the reader to form their own conclusions, the main thing that struck me was how nobody came out looking very good. Leno looks like a guy who simply can't stand to be off of TV, even though he doesn't appear to actually like comedy. O'Brien (who I genuinely enjoy) comes off as both naive to how TV works and a little self-pitying. Letterman appears to just be a moody asshole and the NBC executives come across as spineless weasels who just don't know anything about TV and who never want to ever make a decision because it might make someone mad at them. Then when they finally do make a decision they hide behind numbers, as if it was never really up to them. Even Jimmy Kimmel doesn't come out looking very good, as he seems like a guy just desperate for any attention he can find. The entire book made me really happy I never aggressively pursued a career in television because if these are the successful people, I would hate to deal with the failures.

What's also fascinating to me (and a testament to just how great the writing is) is that I couldn't stop reading this book and I don't even like any of these shows. I never watched "The Tonight Show" when it was hosted by Jay Leno, couldn't tell you the last time I laughed at David Letterman (I'm sorry, but throughout the book everyone worships at the Alter of Dave and I just do not get why everyone is so loyal to this guy), have never seen a second of Jimmy Kimmel and now routinely skip "Conan" in favor of "The Daily Show". Despite all that, I was enthralled by the story.

Now, I should warn you - this is not light, beach-reading material. It's almost 400 pages long and contains a lot of names, networks and connections to wrap your head around. Still, the fact I blew through it in about 3 days should tell you something. It's just a fascinating tale, made all the more intriguing because the characters are real and familiar. However, if you want to give it a read you should probably hurry, because already some of the stuff is already dated. (Example: Dick Ebersol, another guy who doesn't really come across as very likable, has already been fired since the book came out.) But if you like television, office drama and hearing about rich people fighting, then I highly recommend you grab a copy of "The War for Late Night."