A sprawling, layered, and engrossing account about the need to control one’s own story.
In this debut memoir, a ghostwriter steps out from behind the scenes to paint a portrait of his larger-than-life subject.
John McAfee—tech pioneer, crypto evangelist, expatriate murder suspect, and two-time presidential candidate—agreed to hire veteran ghostwriter Foster after the author pitched himself as a potential biographer. Foster, who had worked with several members of the crypto community, felt that the controversial McAfee had been misrepresented in the media and wanted to give the man an opportunity to tell his side of the story. As a college dropout with a few false starts in life, Foster saw something of himself in McAfee, the bombastic founder-turned-critic of the computer security company that still bears his name. “Learning his life story, I traveled across the country with him, and later, throughout Europe,” writes the author. “I had even gone on the run with him. Toward the end of our collaboration—a remarkably stormy end—he had even started calling me ‘son.’ ” Foster got a firsthand look at McAfee’s eccentric lifestyle, which included frequent movements to evade the myriad enemies he was sure wanted him dead. The two men eventually “fired” each other and went their separate ways only a year before McAfee was found dead in a Spanish jail cell while awaiting extradition to the United States. (It was an end that Foster ominously predicted for his former boss shortly before it happened.) With this memoir, the author offers his experiences with McAfee in an attempt to explain the man’s psychology, personality, and worldview, providing rare and intimate insights into the way he lived and died.
The writing delivers the urgency found in a political thriller, as here when Foster was forced to sit in a room under surveillance for several hours before he was allowed to meet McAfee in person: “At midnight, the nighttime activity has finally ceased. Nameless people drift off to their rooms or to their houses, and I’m left wired and awake sitting on a huge couch in a huge room staring at a huge TV that shows my reflection, which I no longer hide from.” His portrait of McAfee is rich and multifaceted, presenting a man who is part James Bond villain and part Coen Brothers bozo. Foster himself is a captivating character: a former gonzo documentarian whose ghostwriting career has brought him into the confidences of all manner of audacious, paranoid, and self-aggrandizing men. (The author, at times, comes off as being all these things himself.) The first half of the volume recounts Foster’s youthful adventures, including a period of homelessness in Los Angeles and his induction into the world of ghostwriting. These vivid stories could easily have been packaged together in their own book, and perhaps they should have been, as those primarily interested in learning about McAfee are forced to wait a long while before he appears. This isn’t a flaw, exactly. The engaging memoir captures the convergence of the mirrored worlds of crypto weirdos and self-publishing hustlers, both of which involve a fair amount of mythmaking. It’s a tale completely of this time, and the author is well equipped to tell it.
A sprawling, layered, and engrossing account about the need to control one’s own story.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2022
ISBN: 9781684429226
Page Count: 454
Publisher: Turner
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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