We’re for the Dark

We’re With Nobody: Two Insiders Reveal the Dark Side of American Politics by Alan Huffman and Michael Rebejian (Wm. Morrow, $15.99, 191 pages)

“…there’s no denying that we’re attracted to the dark.”

Imagine if you read a book about a magician’s career, in which the magician refused to divulge the secrets behind any of his tricks.   Well, that’s similar to the feeling of reading this short nonfiction account (the equivalent of a novella), in which two political opposition researchers tell us they’re going to take us behind the curtain of their trade but then never so much as lift it.   And yet, they tell us that, “Our hope is that by illuminating the process of opposition research you will be better prepared to cull the good from the bad.”   Well, there’s virtually no illumination here.

Instead of telling us exactly how they perform “oppo research,” the team of Huffman and Rebejian take us along on a travelogue.   They describe numerous interesting – and sometimes frightening, sometime humorous – experiences they’ve had in places that house official records, like courthouses, city halls, tax buildings, college and public libraries, etc.   But they critically (in both senses of the word) fail to tell us how they go about conducting the research in question.   What is likely just as big a failing is that for a “tell all” account, they never name the names of the persons they worked for, nor name the candidates they were paid to investigate.   What’s left is like the hole in the donut, and it’s not very satisfying.

The account has no structure to speak of; it’s as if the two individuals (who each wrote different chapters) simply dictated random thoughts.   I read someone’s comment to the effect that she liked not knowing where the book was going…  Yes, and for me that was hardly something positive.

“…we’re being paid to take someone out, literally.”

For me, $16.00 is too much to pay for a book that’s less than a couple of hundred pages in length.   I think that  We’re With Nobody could have used an editor to provide it with some structure, and who might have prodded the authors to add 125 pages or so to justify the price.   Finally, that editor might have insisted on naming the political candidates referenced in this journal, giving the doubtful or skeptical reader (present company included) a chance to do some fact-checking.   Who wants to read a non-fiction, supposedly factual account of politics, when the authors won’t tell us who they’re writing about?

Joseph Arellano

A review copy was provided by the publisher.   We’re With Nobody was released on January 24, 2012.

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Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius by Sylvia Nasar ($35.00, Simon and Schuster, 576 pages)

“These thinkers were searching for intellectual tools that could help solve what Keynes called ‘the political problem of mankind: how to combine three things: economic efficiency, social justice and individual liberty.”

Sylvia Nasar’s most recent foray into the marvels of humankind, Grand Pursuit, is an ambitious look at the science of economics.   Rather than a neatly-constructed timeline with milestones clearly indicated, this is a convoluted, back and forth expose’ of the real people behind the rise and fall of the world economy from the early 1800s to present day.   The book should have included a preface that states: Warning –– a reader whose education lacks Econ 101 will be easily, if not greatly, confused.

The review copy read for this review is an Advance Reader’s Copy.   There are no graphics, photos or embellishments to illustrate the text.   Clearly, Ms. Nasar’s intent is not to deliver a rather lengthy lecture series on the evolution of the science of economics (how business and money and people interact).   Instead, she weaves a detailed account of the persons who make up the pantheon of stars in her chosen field of study (e.g., Maynard Keynes and Paul Samuelson).   The ups and downs of their lives might be fascinating if the reader possesses a basic knowledge of who they are/were and their contributions.   It’s quite boring to read about someone whose genius is not made clear in Nasar’s text.   The theories of these individuals were alluded to, but not clearly defined; and the case to be made for their status as genius is lacking.

The lives of the economists featured were intertwined due in no small part to the challenges placed before them – several great economic depressions and two world wars.   Their need to satisfy personal goals, both intellectual and romantic, fueled their unrelenting efforts to create an ever-lasting formula for a stable world economy.   Alas, the effort continues to this very day.

While it is helpful and enlightening to step out of one’s area of expertise, doing so can be less than enjoyable.   As much as this book missed the mark, The Age of Comfort by Joan Dejean was an unqualified hit.   (A brief review is posted below.)   Both books require a background in the underlying topic and a genuine appreciation of the effort required by the public at large to grasp the evolution of a critical concept.

Ms. Nasar’s writing style seems to mimic the period that she is discussing.   The sentence structure in many of the early chapters is ornate and required re-reading in order for this reader to grasp the meaning.   As she brings the reader into the 20th century, the wording becomes relaxed and takes on a familiar cadence.   Perhaps some editing took place before the final version went to press – one can only hope!

Had this treatise been severly editied, it would have the makings of an engaging inflight magazine article.   As it is, it is much ado about nothing.

The Age of Comfort: When Paris Discovered Casual – and the Modern Home Began by Joan Dejean (Bloomsbury USA, $16.00, 304 pages)

The setting for this book is Paris in the late 17th and early 18th centuries where the notion of comfort in daily living became all the rage among the ruling aristocracy and the wealthy upper class.   Today, we take standards of comfort for granted such as flush toilets, running hot and cold water, showers, private bedrooms and cotton clothing items that gently envelop the body.   Back then the ideal was reflective of the age of magnificence embodied by layers of stiff clothing, standing around or perching on a straight chair.

Thanks to some clever and unrelenting ladies and gentlemen in the courts of Kings Louis XIV and XV, there was rapid change that took only one century to take hold.   Along with the royal shift came the first foray into investing in “the market” which produced a boom with vast monetary rewards for a new non-royal upper class.

Author Joan Dejean is a well-respected authority on France and all this is uniquely French.   She delivers the equivalent of a university-level course in this well-written and nicely-illustrated book that is worthy of a place in the library of a designer or student of design.

Highly recommended.

Ruta Arellano

Review copies were provided by the publishers.

A Must to Avoid

The Weekend That Changed Wall Street: An Eyewitness Account by Maria Bartiromo with Catherine Whitney (Portfolio; $26.95; 232 pages)

There are a number of very good books dealing with the financial crisis that struck Wall Street and this country beginning in September of 2008.   This is not one of them.   In fact, like the title of the song by Herman’s Hermits, this one’s A Must to Avoid.

Firstly, it’s not really an eyewitness account.   Unlike the accounts in which the writer was an earlier participant in the events, Bartiromo does not claim to have been present in the financial firm board rooms as things melted down.   Instead, she appears to rely on the other accounts previously written adding only a few quotes from on-air interviews she conducted between 2008 and 2010.

Secondly, there are only 208 actual pages of content here, which is awfully skimpy for a $27.00 hardbound release.   Although Bartiromo was not present at the center of the financial action, she was apparently present at a number of grand parties involving Wall Street wizards who could spend money like there was no tomorrow (but tomorrow wound up coming early).   Which brings us to the key problem with this flimsy account…  When it comes to choosing between the folks on Main Street – good, hardworking Americans and small businessmen and women – and the princes on Wall Street, Bartiromo makes clear that she’s on the side of the multi-millionaires and billionaires.

Early on, Bartiromo explains to the reader that she married into a very wealthy New York City family, with an apartment on Park Avenue, and this sets the stage for her very biased view in this tale.   She claims that the U. S. media developed a “simplistic narrative of working class heroes versus fat-cat villains.”   Only this wasn’t a simplistic narrative, it was reality.   She herself describes men like Stan O’Neal at Merrill Lynch who got paid $150 million for leaving the firm “even though he ruined the company.”   (It turns out that O’Neal was underpaid compared to other Wall Street executives who received far more hundreds of millions once they were sacked.)

Surprisingly and rather shockingly, Bartiromo goes further with this craziness asking us to feel sorry for one Lehman Brothers executive who made $14 million in one year, then was reduced to a measly $1 million in take home pay the next year.   This, Miss Maria finds to be horrible and virtually incomprehensible.   No  matter that the gentleman in question was hardly forced to go on food stamps or eat in food kitchens.   No, the rich must live in the manner to which they’ve become accustomed, according to this account.

Just to show that I’m not taking things out of context, here are the actual words she uses to draw our tearful sympathy:

“Many (Wall Street executives) were experiencing tremendous anger and grief.   In some cases, it was the wives who were most deeply affected.   They went from being at the top of the social register, with galas and benefits filling their calendars, to being on the outside, embarrassed to show their faces.   One insider observed to me, ‘When the wealthy falter, there is deep shame on a level that the average person cannot grasp.   In that world, you’re either in or you’re not.   It’s not the same as losing a job in a middle class neighborhood, where your friends and neighbors are likely to rally around you.   When you lose your job at the top, they cut you dead.’ “

Excuse me, but what nonsense.   This is offensive to “average” hardworking American citizens, like those that buy and read most of the books in this nation.   Who is Maria Bartiromo writing for – Mrs. and Mrs. Donald Trump?

Although Bartiromo’s writing assistant, Catherine Whitney, has her name listed on the book’s cover, this does not mean the book is well-edited.   Instead, the book is littered with odd grammar.   For example, “Merrill seemed more like a winner than a loser.   We had to look at the entities that may still fall in the coming weeks and months…”   Perhaps they meant to write that they had to look at the entities that might fall in the coming weeks and months.

Clearly, this one is not recommended but there are other alternatives to consider.   For an exciting “fly on the wall” telling, try Street Fighters: The Last 72 Hours of Bear Stearns, the Toughest Firm on Wall Street by Kate Kelly.   Then there’s the recommended A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers by Lawrence G. McDonald with Patrick Robinson.   And if you don’t mind an overly long, rambling and maddeningly detailed version of these events there’s On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System by Henry W. (Hank) Paulson, Jr.   Any one of these accounts is one hundred times better – and far less patronizing – than Bartiromo’s slight “eyewitness account”.

Joseph Arellano

A review copy was received from the publisher.

An Unfocused Journey

The Autobiography of an Execution (Twelve, 288 pages, $24.99)

“Outside the prison gates on Fridays, the parking lot is like a carnival.   Vans and RVs and pickup trucks with campers fill the visitor spaces.”

David R. Dow’s strangely titled book is part journal of his legal defense work in death penalty cases, and part memoir of his personal life with his wife and son (he was late to marry).   Unfortunately, it never quite decides what it want to be so it offers a not-so-fascinating look at both aspects of his life.   There also seem to be two characters vying for attention here:  Dow the brass knuckled street fighting gritty attorney and Dow the gentle family man.   The one thing that is obvious is that Dow has an immense ego, something that he quotes his wife as commenting upon.   (Think about the ego is takes for someone to include a quote from a loved one who has said that he has an outsized ego.)

Then there’s the writing style.   Dow admits that he’s not an accomplished writer and the style of Execution might be categorized as without style.   Dow bounces around in a quirky fashion moving from tense legal cases to family matters, and back again, without any apparent map or hint of structure.   The plus side to this stream of consciousness approach is that it does not require a lot of attention from the reader as Dow does not stick to any one topic for very long.

This is an airplane ride book, which offers far less substance on the death penalty debate than a prospective purchaser might expect.  

Reprinted courtesy of Sacramento Book Review.