DIAMOND DUST

Swain, with co-author McKinley, presents a casual but bracing memoir about his time as a counterfeiter.

The opening of this remembrance quickly sums up the author’s background as a graphic design business owner in Ogden, Utah, before diving right into the process of counterfeiting itself, which proves to be engaging reading. His first foray into forgery in the 1970s involved copying a postage stamp as a way to impress an ad agency; the company was taking job applications for graphic design work but didn’t want to see portfolios. Swain’s talent and attention to detail later came in handy when he set his mind to printing more than $250,000 in $20 bills, complete with traces of diamond dust in their ink; the move into counterfeiting was initially inspired by the necessity of paying back a loan shark. As Swain notes insightfully, “I had used my artistry to convince myself, a kind of con artistry in reverse.” He writes of how his illegal activity was at odds with his faith as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and he discusses the complicated feelings he experienced about his actions as time went on. A mixture of pride and fear is often evident: “Of course, part of me wanted to tell [my family] how clever I had been…but a stronger part of me said that this was a secret to carry to my grave. Or to prison. Whichever came first.” As Swain spent and exchanged the faked bills, he went further down a rabbit hole, and he writes of the addicting thrill he experienced: “I was living large and living on the edge,” and the edge, as he describes it, is indeed an exciting place. Overall, the chapters are relatively short and snappy, as if the book’s roots are in a long conversation, and many readers will be reminded of the memoir Catch Me If You Can (1980), by Frank W. Abagnale Jr. with Stan Redding, which yielded a popular 2002 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

A punchy and often fascinating remembrance.