Writer, journalist and political satirist P.J. O'Rourke has passed away. O'Rourke wrote more than twenty books about a range of topics from politics to cars, and she appeared on the NPR show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! I was a panelist for a long time.
According to his publisher, Grove Atlantic, O'Rourke passed away this morning due to complications from lung cancer. He was 74 years old.
O'Rourke began her career writing for National Lampoon, and later headed the foreign affairs desk at Rolling Stone, where she covered world politics from the Persian Gulf to the Philippines. His books Parliament of Hours and Give War a Chance both reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.
Later in life he contributed to more conservative outlets, including The Weekly Standard, and served as the H. L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute.
O'Rourke was born in Toledo, Ohio, into a family that, as he put it, "is so common that there is almost a statistical anomaly." His father used to sell cars and his mother was a housewife.
In the early 1990s he moved to New Hampshire, where he continued to write. According to his Grove Atlantic bio, O'Rourke "lived to stay away from the things he writes about as much as he could get."
"PJ was one of the leading voices of his generation," writes Morgan Antrekin, CEO and publisher of Grove Atlantic. "Her insightful reporting, verbal acumen, and the gift of writing prose with laughs was unparalleled."
"This is a heartbreaking loss for all of us on NPR, our member stations and the millions of public radio listeners who enjoyed hearing from PJ O'Rourke as the Wait...Wait panelists and their take on every news The week counts for meaninglessness," Anya Grundman, NPR's senior vice president of programming, said in a statement.
The quiz show's staff, hosted by Peter Sagal, wrote, "[O'Rourke] made her debut as a special guest on our first show since 9/11, when we needed someone who could do terrible things." Be funny about that, which, of course, was PJ's specialty." His statement continues, "As much fun as he had on the show, he was even more delightful at the bar afterwards. We will all miss him dearly, and extend our deepest condolences to his wife Tina and their children."
PJ O'Rourke is survived by wife Tina O'Rourke and three children.