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The Once and Future King

Robert Pinsky’s David, and NBC’s

by
March 17, 2009

[vimeo 240975]
The new NBC drama Kings debuted last Sunday, offering a modern rendering of the Biblical story of David, complete with Shiloh, belligerent Philistines, and Goliath (in this case, a tank). In lieu of an episode guide, check out Robert Pinsky’s The Life of David, a Nextbook/Schocken book just published in paperback. In Matthew Brogan’s 2005 interview with Pinsky, he called David “a politician, a Robin Hood, a dissembler, a builder, an Odysseus, a musician, a King Lear, a founding father, and an upstart”—in other words, the perfect character for a Mamet-esque political thriller