If you’re a fan of the televisual novel that is The Wire then the chances are you are going to want to get this lovely book. From the lengthy introduction by series creator David Simon, to the episode guides, profusion of fantastic photographs, selection of articles and other in-depth information, everything here will make you want to watch The Wire again from the beginning to pick up on the details and nuances that you will undoubtedly have missed the first time ar0und.

David Simon’s introduction sets the scene perfectly – readers familiar with his previous books and the two TV mini-series that they spawned will want to know how he came to assemble the much more ambitious ‘televisual novel’ idea, a format that made considerable demands of its audience, and that probably only the US cable network HBO (slogan: “It’s not TV. It’s HBO”) could have had the status and the vision to commission. He talks about the assembly of the writing team, most of whom had little experience of writing for television, the importance of the producers and directors to  the overall creative vision, casting and more.  In his interview with Nick Hornby he delves more deeply in to the public policy issues that The Wire is designed to highlight – starting with the notion that the ‘War on Drugs’ is de facto a war on the American underclass.

The episode guides are surprisingly compelling reading, striking the right balance between overview and detail, and I discovered things that I am sure I missed on first watch (I had to skip the Season Five guides, as I haven’t finished watching that series yet – though there are a few spoilers for the final series dotted around elsewhere).  There’s plenty of other intriguing detail in here, from the casting of people who David Simon wrote about in Homicide and The Corner, to the music (the theme music has been re-recorded for each of the five seasons), the locations used for the filming and the reaction in Baltimore to the series.

This is a lovely book, and with the welter of black and white photographs, and the lovely colour plates, it’s also a very desirable physical object. The contents, featuring contributions from so many of the people who made The Wire wonderful, are diverse and engaging, and the whole thing adds to our understanding and enjoyment of the series. There is no doubt a place on the shelves for a more objective, critical assessment of The Wire – this is not that book – but as a companion piece it’s very good and very timely.

Read an extract from the book over at Bookhugger

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