A writer recounts his spectacular Canadian lottery win and the avalanche of grief it brought him.
Debut author Rush’s life was completely transformed in an instant when he won the lottery, a windfall of 50 million Canadian dollars tax free. It took him about a “nanosecond” to quit his job, and he quickly celebrated with some carefree spending, including getting two brand new sports cars. Rush was contacted by Jeremy, the son of one of his most trusted friends, David, with a business proposition: He asked for a $5 million investment in social media software that promised to be the next Facebook. Jeremy “radiated success,” and his “strong, charismatic personality” made him appear like a “visionary on a mission.” The author was convinced and parted with $4.6 million, but he soon began to have doubts. According to Rush, Jeremy was inclined to purchase ludicrously luxurious items and was suspiciously comfortable cutting legal corners. The author contends that he discovered that Jeremy’s business proposal was more hype than promise and that he bamboozled him out of millions, all with the help of David, who was once a spiritual mentor to Rush. The author energetically chronicles his progressively sickening realizations—Jeremy was not a newcomer to fraud and left behind him a “trail of devastated victims.” Rush eventually made it his mission to “take down” white-collar crime. The author’s prose is lucidly informal—it reads like a lament delivered to a friend over drinks. He’s also impressively candid—he admits that the money brought far more sorrow than contentment. Ultimately, he was compelled to ruminate about what he wanted in life, the real gift of the lottery win: “How much was enough? How much did I really need?” The minute details of a court battle with Jeremy that raged on for eight months are likely to exhaust readers. But overall, the book is a gripping story full of greed, astonishing naiveté, and thoughtful reflections.
A thrilling remembrance by a fighter of white-collar crime.Pub Date: June 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9992524-0-3
Page Count: 290
Publisher: Rantanna Media Inc
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
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A top-notch political memoir and serious exercise in practical politics for every reader.
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In the first volume of his presidential memoir, Obama recounts the hard path to the White House.
In this long, often surprisingly candid narrative, Obama depicts a callow youth spent playing basketball and “getting loaded,” his early reading of difficult authors serving as a way to impress coed classmates. (“As a strategy for picking up girls, my pseudo-intellectualism proved mostly worthless,” he admits.) Yet seriousness did come to him in time and, with it, the conviction that America could live up to its stated aspirations. His early political role as an Illinois state senator, itself an unlikely victory, was not big enough to contain Obama’s early ambition, nor was his term as U.S. Senator. Only the presidency would do, a path he painstakingly carved out, vote by vote and speech by careful speech. As he writes, “By nature I’m a deliberate speaker, which, by the standards of presidential candidates, helped keep my gaffe quotient relatively low.” The author speaks freely about the many obstacles of the race—not just the question of race and racism itself, but also the rise, with “potent disruptor” Sarah Palin, of a know-nothingism that would manifest itself in an obdurate, ideologically driven Republican legislature. Not to mention the meddlings of Donald Trump, who turns up in this volume for his idiotic “birther” campaign while simultaneously fishing for a contract to build “a beautiful ballroom” on the White House lawn. A born moderate, Obama allows that he might not have been ideological enough in the face of Mitch McConnell, whose primary concern was then “clawing [his] way back to power.” Indeed, one of the most compelling aspects of the book, as smoothly written as his previous books, is Obama’s cleareyed scene-setting for how the political landscape would become so fractured—surely a topic he’ll expand on in the next volume.
A top-notch political memoir and serious exercise in practical politics for every reader.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6316-9
Page Count: 768
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
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All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
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