R.I.P.

Famed Satirist P.J. O’Rourke Dies at 74 After Lung Cancer Battle

“Sex made P.J. O’Rourke a left-winger. Money made him a right-winger. Power made him suspicious,” The Washington Post once wrote of the famed satirist’s unique worldview.

Distinguished author and political satirist P. J. O’Rourke died at age 74 on Tuesday morning of complications from lung cancer. Publishing company Grove Atlantic, which over the years sent several of O’Rourke’s best-sellers to print, confirmed his death in a statement. “P.J. was one of the major voices of his generation,” wrote CEO and publisher Morgan Entrekin. From his classics Modern Manners and Parliament of Whores to How the Hell Did This Happen, a result of his dismay at the 2016 election—P.J. kept providing fierce, smart, always amusing reports on the American condition.” In the early 1970s, the famed satirist served as the editor-in-chief of influential humor magazine National Lampoon. He went on to write more than 20 books—including two New York Times Best Sellers, cheekily titled Parliament of Whores and Give War a Chance—and regularly contributed to outlets like The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Vanity Fair, and The Daily Beast. His uniquely libertarian worldview was once succinctly described in The Washington Post by longtime Daily Beast editor-at-large Lloyd Grove: “Sex made P.J. O’Rourke a left-winger. Money made him a right-winger. Power made him suspicious.”

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Zachary PetrizzoFormer Politics Reporter

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