Information on The Last Hurrah

Here's some information about The Last Hurrah that I pulled off of the internet (maybe it will help people to decide to pick it in the future if they have an idea what it is about):

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the book:
The story concerns a veteran politician, Frank Skeffington, as seen through the eyes of a nephew whom he invites to accompany him on yet another mayoral reelection campaign - which turns out to be unsuccessful and the end of Skeffington's long career. Skeffington has a gentlemanly manner, lacing his talk with literary quotations. He is slightly corrupt, but delivers service to his constituents. He is an expert at juggling and balancing the claims of the various Boston-area ethnic groups. But his time has past, and he loses the election to a very mediocre and nondescript Irish challenger. While not a target, there are points of similarity between Skeffington and Boston mayor James Michael Curley. (Boston is nowhere explicitly named in the book, which invariably just refers to "the city" - but the location is unmistakable.)

A little more about it:
The Last Hurrah. O'Connor's bestseller shows an Irish American big-city political machine at work in a portrait of Mayor Frank Skeffington, who resembles Boston's James Michael Curley. Despite efforts by Curley to halt production, the novel would be adapted as a successful 1958 film, starring Spencer Tracy. Born in Rhode Island, O'Connor became a radio announcer after graduating from college, an experience that provided the subject for his first novel, The Oracle (1951).

And more:
Edwin O'Connor's prizewinning The Last Hurrah is one of the most entertaining novels ever written about American politics. It evokes the seedy grandeur of Frank Skeffington, last of the great big-city Irish political bosses, making his final race for mayor.
In its praise for the novel, the New York Herald Tribune said, "Above all there is Mayor Skeffington, fighting his last fight to keep the city from 'reverting to Government by Pigmies,' a man of complex character, great charm, wonderful wit, and with much more than Blarney on his tongue. Happy only when running for, or occupying office, [he's] more than a mere footnote to the political and social history of his time.
You hear his voice, you respond to his eloquence, you laugh at his wit, you deplore his demagoguery, and you know you have met a man in these hilarious but penetrating and revealing pages. Frank Skeffington, as portrayed by Edwin O'Connor, is a permanent creation."
"The Irish Catholic world of Boston has never before been explotted with this seriousness, intelligence, and intimate knowledge." -Edmund Wilson
"A resounding success-vigorous, amusing, and brilliantly observed." -Atlantic
"The best American novel about urban politics." -Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.