P.J. O'Rourke Biography

P.J. O'Rourke is the best-selling author of several books, including Modern Manners, The Bachelor Home Companion, Republican Party Reptile, Holidays in Hell, Parliament of Whores, Give War A Chance, All the Trouble in the World, Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut, and now, Eat the Rich.

Born in 1947 in Toledo, Ohio, he graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, then won a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to study for an MA in English at Johns Hopkins. In the early 1970s, he wrote for and edited several "underground" publications, including a Baltimore weekly called Harry. He joined the National Lampoon in 1973, became its managing editor in 1975, and was named editor-in-chief in 1978. While at the Lampoon he created, with Doug Kenney, The National Lampoon 1964 Yearbook Parody and, with John Hughes, The National Lampoon Sunday Newspaper Parody.

After leaving the Lampoon in 1981, O'Rourke became a freelance writer for such insanely diverse publications as Car and Driver, The American Spectator, Playboy, Esquire, Vanity Fair, Automobile, House and Garden, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, Parade, Smart, Harper's and Rolling Stone, where he is currently the magazine's Foreign Affairs Desk Chief.

O'Rourke's books have been translated into a dozen languages and have been bestsellers worldwide. Three have been New York Times hardcover bestsellers: Parliament of Whores and Give War A Chance, both of which went to #1, as well as All the Trouble in the World. When not on the road, he divides his time between New Hampshire and Washington, DC.

About This Biography
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