TEXAS LITERARY OUTLAWS: Six Writers in the Sixties and Beyond by Steven L. Davis

Texas Literary Outlaws: Six Writers in the Sixties and Beyond, published in 2004, is a survey of the lives and works of six writers, all friends, who put their state on the literary map for the first time, and had a rip-roaring good time while doing it.  It seems that the only things they took seriously were friendship, partying, and writing.  Steven L. Davis’ account is thoroughly researched and well written.  Even though it is a scholarly work, it reads like a good novel.

Steven L. Davis

THE WRITERS.

 

1). BILLY LEE BRAMMER

Given the fact that this group of good ol' boys burned the candle at both ends, it is difficult to believe how they were able to accomplish much writing.  But they did, with one exception: Billy Lee Brammer.

Born in Dallas in 1929, Brammer published his only book, The Gay Place, in 1961 when he was only thirty-one years old.  Although the word gay was beginning to take on a sexual connotation at the time, it was used here in its more traditional sense.  Brammer’s writing was greatly influenced by F. Scott Fitzgerald and the title comes from a Fitzgerald poem: “I know a gay place/Nobody knows.

Depicting life in Austin during the fifties, it has been called Texas’ first urban novel. It consists of three novellas that are linked together by the character of Governor Arthur “Goddamn” Fenstermaker, who was obviously based on Lyndon B. Johnson.

As the years went by, Brammer became more and more addicted to hard drugs and though he was able to write an occasional magazine article, he was never able to finish another book.  He died from a drug overdose in 1978.  He was forty-eight years old.

It was a tremendous waste of talent, but as Davis writes, it was Brammer who showed the way for his five friends.

 2). DAN JENKINS 

 

Born in Ft. Worth in 1929, Jenkins is the most famous of the six. He left Texas and took a job with a fledgling sports magazine called Sports Illustrated and stayed with them for twenty-four years.  He specialized in stories about golf and college football and eventually became the magazine’s star writer.

In 1972, Jenkins published his first novel, Semi-Tough, a comedic romp about the adventures of two NFL players.  It became a bestseller and was later made into a hit movie starring Burt Reynolds and Kris Kristofferson.

Now retired from SI, Jenkins has written more than twenty books, his latest being His Ownself: A Semi-Memoir. 

 

 3). LARRY L. KING

No, not that Larry King.  I’m talking about the writer, you know, the talented Larry King.  The one in the picture.

He was also born in 1929, but way out in the western part of the state, near the little town of Putnam.  His only novel, The One-Eyed Man – based on a character similar to Louisiana governor Earl Long – did not receive many good reviews and did not do much business. (I read it years ago and remember liking it.  I have a copy and hope to re-read it in order to see if I missed something.)

King made his mark originally as one of the country’s most respected magazine writers.  However, he is the only writer to be nominated for a National Book Award (for non-fiction), a Broadway Tony, and a TV Emmy.

The play for which King received his Tony nomination was “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.”  He protested the fact that it was turned into a musical (he lost the argument) and he protested when Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton were cast in the lead roles when it was filmed by Hollywood (he lost the argument).

To his dismay, it also became his best-known work.  He knew that it probably would be the lead when his obituary was written.  It was.

King died in 2012 at age eighty-three.

4). GARY CARTWRIGHT

 

He was born in Dallas in 1934.  He began his career as a police reporter before becoming a sportswriter.  At one time, the Fort Worth Press employed Cartwright, Dan Jenkins, and Bud Shrake in their sports department under the leadership of another legendary Texas sportswriter, Blackie Sherrod.

After he left the newspaper business, Cartwright became a freelance writer whose work was primarily published in magazines.  His novels were not critical successes, but in later years he published two successful true crime books set in Texas: Blood Will Tell and Dirty Dealing.

 

5). PETER GENT (pronounced ‘Jent’)

George Davis Peter Gent is somewhat of an outlier.  For one thing, he was born in Michigan.  He was a four-sport star in high school and was later a star basketball player at Michigan State.  Although he was drafted by the NBA’s Baltimore Bullets, he accepted a try out invitation from the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys.  Despite not playing college football, the Cowboys signed him as a wide receiver.  Ironically, he played opposite Bob Hayes, who also did not play college football, but was an Olympic sprinter.  Also on the team was another basketball player, Cornell Green, who played defensive back.

Gent’s NFL career, primarily because of injuries, lasted only five years.  But after his retirement, he continued to make his home in Dallas and he became friends with the five writers.  Because of their encouragement, especially that of Shrake, he decided to write a football novel.  Five years after he played his last game, he published North Dallas Forty, which was a critical and commercial success.

Whereas Dan Jenkins had approached the game with a whimsical eye, Gent took off the gloves and blasted the Cowboys and the NFL in general for what he felt were dehumanizing practices that drove players to drug addiction in order to fight the pain they experienced.  The two main characters in the novel are a pass receiver (based on Gent) and a quarterback (based on his buddy, Don Meredith).  They are the good guys.  The bad guys are the coach (based on the legendary Tom Landry) and the general manager (based on Tex Schramm).

In 1979, the novel was filmed with Nick Nolte as the wide receiver and singer Mac Davis, yes Mac Davis, as the quarterback.  Not only was it a hit, but the game action scenes are some of the best Hollywood ever produced – perhaps the best ever.

After his huge success with both his novel and film, Gent continued to write and later published three more novels, but none enjoyed the success of his debut.  Eventually Gent returned to Michigan and died there in 2011.

6). EDWIN "BUD" SHRAKE

 

Bud Shrake was born in Ft. Worth in 1931.  He attended high school with Dan Jenkins and they became friends while writing for the school newspaper.  Shrake followed Jenkins in the newspaper business to Ft. Worth and Dallas and then to Sports Illusrtrated.

Shrake, an extremely versatile writer, was a sportswriter, police reporter, magazine writer, biographer, screenwriter, playwright, and novelist. Davis also gives him the highest marks among the six when it comes to talent.

None of his ten novels experienced commercial success, but two have become cult classics.  Blessed McGill, published in 1968, was his third novel and is considered to be his best.  The story is narrated by one Peter Hermano McGill, a half-Irish, half-Spanish adventurer who roamed the American southwest and Mexico in the years after the Civil War. Although McGill is self-educated, he is a good writer and a great storyteller who weaves his life story through flashback episodes that are not always related in chronological order. True, that narrative device has the effect of keeping the reader in the dark and guessing at times, but in the end, everything falls into place and the reader learns why the nickname "Blessed" is bestowed upon him; but I'm not telling.

In his review of the book, Larry McMurtry called it a “black-humor” Western.

The other cult favorite is "Strange Peaches."  Published in 1972, the semi-autobiographical novel is set in Dallas just before and just after the assassination of JFK.  The two main characters are patterned on Shrake and his friend Gary Cartwright.




Also by Shrake: 

 

THE FILMS.

J.W. COOP (1971)

DIRECTOR: Cliff Robertson;  PRODUCER: Cliff Robertson;  WRITERS: screenplay by Edwin "Bud" Shrake, Gary Cartwright and Cliff Robertson;  CINEMATOGRAPHER: Frank Stanley

CAST: Cliff Robertson, Geraldine Page, Cristina Ferrare, R.G. Armstrong, R.L. Armstrong, John Crawford, Wade Crosby

KID BLUE (1973)

DIRECTOR: James Frawley;   PRODUCER: Marvin Schwartz;  WRITER: Edwin "Bud" Shrake;  CINEMATOGRAPHER: Billy Williams

CAST: Dennis Hopper, Warren Oates, Peter Boyle, Ben Johnson, Lee Purcell, Janice Rule, Ralph Waite, Howard Hesseman, M. Emmet Walsh 





  

   

 SEMI-TOUGH (1977)

DIRECTOR: Michael Ritchie; PRODUCER: David Merrick; WRITERS: screenplay by Walter Bernstein based upon novel of same name by Dan Jenkins; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Charles Rosher, Jr.

CAST: Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, Jill Clayburgh, Robert Preston, Bert Convy

 NORTH DALLAS FORTY (1979)

DIRECTOR: Ted Kotcheff;  PRODUCER: Frank Yablans;  WRITERS: screenplay by Frank Yablans, Ted Kotcheff and Peter Gent based upon novel of same name by Peter Gent;  CINEMATOGRAPHER: Paul Lohmann

CAST: Nick Nolte, Mac Davis, Charles Durning, Dayle Haddon, Bo Svenson, John Matuszak, Steve Forrest, G.D. Spradlin, Dabney Coleman

NIGHTWING (1979)

DIRECTOR: Arthur Hiller;  PRODUCER: Martin Ransohoff;  WRITERS: screenplay by Edwin "Bud" Shrake, Steve Shagan and Martin Cruz Smith based upon novel of same name by Martin Cruz Smith;  CINEMATOGRAPHER: Charles Rosher, Jr.

CAST:  Nick Mancuso, David Warner, Kathryn Harrold, Stephen Macht, Strother Martin, Ben Piazza

TOM HORN (1980)

DIRECTOR: William Wiard;  PRODUCERS: Fred Weintraub and Steve McQueen;  WRITERS: screenplay by Thomas McGuane and Edwin "Bud" Shrake;  CINEMATOGRAPHER: John A. Alonzo

CAST: Steve McQueen, Linda Evans, Richard Farnsworth, Billy Green Bush, Slim Pickens, Elisha Cook, Jr., Geoffrey Lewis 

THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS (1982)

DIRECTOR: Colin Higgins;  PRODUCERS: Robert L. Boyett, Peter Macgregor-Scott, Edward K. Milkis and Thomas L. Miller;  WRITERS: screenplay by Larry L. King, Peter Masterson and Colin Higgins based upon play by Larry L. King and Peter Masterson;  CINEMATOGRAPHY: William A. Fraker

CAST: Burt Reynolds, Dolly Parton, Dom DeLuise, Charles Durning, Jim Nabors, Robert Mandan, Lois Nettleton, Noah Beery, Jr., Barry Corbin, Theresa Merritt

SONGWRITER (1984)

DIRECTOR: Alan Rudolph;  PRODUCER: Sydney Pollock;  WRITER: Edwin "Bud" Shrake;  Cinematography: Matthew F. Leonetti 

CAST:  Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Melinda Dillon, Rip Torn, Lesley Ann Warren

PAIR OF ACES (1990) (TV movie)

DIRECTOR: Aaron Lipstadt;  PRODUCER: Cyrus Yavneh;  WRITERS: screenplay by Edwin "Bud" Shrake and Gary Cartwright;  CINEMATOGRAPHER: Tim Suhrstedt

CAST: Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Helen Shaver, Rip Torn, Lash LaRue

ANOTHER PAIR OF ACES: THREE OF A KIND (1990) (TV movie)

DIRECTOR: Bill Bixby;  PRODUCER: Cyrus Yaneh;  WRITERS: screenplay by Rob Gilmer based upon characters created by Edwin "Bud" Shrake and Gary Cartwright;  CINEMATOGRAPHER: Chuck Colwell

CAST:  Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Joan Severance, Rip Torn

TEXAS JUSTICE (1995) TV mini-series

DIRECTOR: Dick Lowry;  PRODUCER: Nancy Hardin;  WRITERS: teleplay by T.S. Cook based upon Gary Cartwright novel, Blood Will Tell;  CINEMATOGRAPHER: Steven Fierberg

CAST: Peter Strauss, Heather Locklear, Dennis Franz, Lewis Smith, Susan Walters 



THE CORRECTIONS by Jonathan Franzen

The critics loved “The Corrections.” Published in 2001, it won the National Book Award for fiction for that year and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize a year later. It also won or was nominated for a number of other prestigious literary prizes.

David Gates wrote in his glowing review in the New York Times that “The Corrections” had “just enough novel-of-paranoia touches so Oprah won’t assign it and ruin Franzen’s street cred.”

Wrong, David. Oprah not only chose it for her book club but went so far as to proclaim it “the great American novel.” Franzen, who recognized that his book’s selection by Oprah meant that sales would sharply increase, was nevertheless ambivalent about the situation because he believed that heretofore her selections had been on the “schmaltzy” side. Consequently, when he voiced his feelings in several interviews Oprah withdrew her invitation to have him as a guest on her show (And the dust cover of my hardback copy does not feature her stamp of approval, which had been embossed on earlier copies of the book.). Of course, the publicity engendered by the tempest in a teapot may have had as much of a positive impact on sales as his appearance on her show would have had. But perhaps he did salvage his “street cred.” I hope so.

So how is it that I would give such a heralded book two out of five stars? I’ll answer that, but first here is another quote from David Gates’ review: “If you don’t end up liking each one of Franzen’s people, you probably just don’t like people.”

My answer for the two stars is I didn’t like any of the people. I didn’t like the father, the mother (I did feel some pity for her, but I can’t say I liked her.), the older son (or especially his wife), the younger son, or the daughter (At first I liked her, but only because I didn’t know her. When I did get to know her, I found her to be the most unlikable of the entire crew, except for the older son’s wife.).

Is this because, in Gates’ words, I “probably just don’t like people”? No, it was because I just don't like THESE people or for that matter, any of their friends or associates. There was not a single person that I could pull for – not one. And after 568 pages, I not only don’t like the people, I don’t like the book either.

The two stars were for the writing (otherwise it would have been one), and even then, there were times I wasn’t crazy about the writing either. For example: “…Susy Ghosh asked the table in a voice like hair in a shampoo commercial.” (p. 326) I’m still trying to figure out what the hell that means.

TRADING MANNY: How a Father & Son Learned to Love Baseball Again by Jim Gullo

In December 2007, Major League Baseball (MLB) released the so-called Mitchell Report. It made the claim that eighty-nine major league baseball players had been guilty of using performance enhancing drugs (PED’s). Although the report made no names public, a few high profile names on the list were leaked to the press.

Jim Gullo, a free-lance writer, and his son, Joe, seven-years old at the time, were huge baseball fans. With the release of the report, young Joe began to ask questions, questions such as: 1) If drugs are bad for you, why do players take them? 2) Isn’t it cheating to take drugs? 3) If it is cheating, why aren’t players being punished?

The elder Gullo was able to satisfactorily answer the second question, but found the other two to be difficult propositions to explain to a seven-year old. Manny Ramirez was Joe’s favorite player and, despite living in the Seattle area, the Boston Red Sox was his favorite team. Steroid rumors had swirled around Ramirez for several years, but he had always denied them. Then he was caught. Twice he was suspended by MLB. He still denied that he had ever resorted to PED’s

The Ramirez revelations hit young Joe like a ton of bricks. It would have been analogous to me at that age to discover that Stan Musial was a boozer and a wife-abuser

Father and son embarked on a two-year odyssey to try to determine why players jeopardized their health by taking PED’s and why MLB wasn’t meting out greater punishments for the perpetrators. They visited with many different people associated with various aspects of the game at both the major and minor league levels.

Very few people associated with the game were willing to discuss the issue. Minor league pitcher Dirk Hayhurst was the only active player who would talk about the problem and even then only in a decidedly guarded fashion. At the time, he was a blogger who was also working on a book about his minor league experiences. He confessed to Gullo that he had to be circumspect about what he said or wrote about the drug problem because it would cause him difficulties with his teammates who were already suspicious of his note taking in the clubhouse. When Hayhurst’s book, “The Bullpen Gospels,” was later published, there was no mention of PED’s

One ex-major leaguer, Scott Brosius, former Yankees third baseman and currently a college baseball coach, was more open in his condemnation of drug use. Partly, I suppose, because he wanted to dissuade his players from giving in to the temptation and because he was no longer an active player. That is still to his credit, because other ex-players approached by Gullo were close-mouthed about the issue.

Why was MLB so tardy in creating a drug testing policy and why even today do many think the punishment for violators is insufficient? Jim Gullo struggled with that question but never arrived at what he thought was a good answer. I’m not sure why, because it seems obvious.

MLB in the mid to late 90s was reeling from the strike-shortened season of 1994. It was a year that the unimaginable occurred; there was no World Series.

Four years later saw the herculean home run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. Not only did both sluggers surpass Roger Maris’ single season mark of sixty-one home runs, but McGwire stomped it into the ground with seventy home runs. (McGwire’s record would stand for only three years, however, when Barry Bonds hit seventy-three in 2001.)

How did McGwire’s Cardinals team fare during his record-breaking season? It finished in 3rd place in the division with a record of 83-79 and, worst of all, 21.5 games out of first place. However, the team’s attendance for the year was 3,195,691, which represented an increase of approximately 500,000 over the previous year. Not only that, wherever the Cardinals (or Cubs) played on the road the home team always enjoyed an increase in gate receipts.

Sammy Sosa lost the home run race to McGwire, but his team still benefited. The Cubs finished second in the division with a record of 90-73, but 12.5 games out of first. But they made it into the postseason as a wild card, only to be swept in three straight by the Braves. The Cubs drew 2,623,194 fans that season, also an increase of approximately 500,000. (Poor Sammy Sosa, the only hitter to hit more than sixty home runs in three different seasons, and yet failled to finish first in either of those years. He finished second to McGwire twice and once to Bonds.)

It is apparent that PED’s were financially good for baseball franchises – and their players.

But why would players jeopardize their health? Gullo struggled with that question for 250 pages, but he had answered it on page sixty. The aforementioned Dirk Hayhurst was in competition with pitcher Clay Hensley for a spot on San Diego’s major-league roster. Two years before, Hensley failed a drug test. He had been taking steroids. His only penalty was the fifteen-game suspension that was in force at the time. He made the roster; Hayhurst was assigned to San Diego’s Triple-A Portland team.

Triple-A may be only a step away from the major leagues, but in all other aspects it isn’t even close. For example, that season Hensley would make the minimum MLB salary of $410,000. Hayhurst would make $1,200 a month, but only for the duration of the baseball season. Hensley would travel by air, stay in luxury hotels, and receive a hundred dollars a day as meal money. On the road Hayhurst would travel on buses, stay in fleabag motels, eat at convenience stores and gas stations, and receive meal money that would barely cover that meager fare. Furthermore, while Hensley stayed around long enough to qualify for a major league pension, Hayhurst did not.

Although this does not explain why a Hayhurst and others do not surrender to the PED temptation, it does explain why a Hensley and many others do.

PED’s have resulted in millions and millions of dollars of income for players and franchises. Let’s consider this list of accused violators of MLB’s drug policy: Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, and Manny Ramirez. These are among the greatest superstars of a whole generation of players. But because of the shadow hanging over their respective heads, in all likelihood none will ever be admitted to the Hall of Fame. Meanwhile, as the old adage goes, they can cry all the way to the bank. (This makes a baseball fan like me wonder about the relevance of the Hall of Fame if all these sluggers, MVP’s, and Cy Young winners will not be there. I also wonder what it now means to players who are being elected to the Hall. Has the significance of that honor been greatly diminished?)

Trading Manny, the title of the book, is a reference to a trade that father and son made after their two-year odyssey. They traded Manny for a new favorite player, one who did not drink, dip, and, despite being in his mid-twenties, was an admitted virgin abstaining from sex until marriage. His name is (no surprise) Dirk Hayhurst, a relief pitcher who spent part of two seasons in the major leagues while appearing in a total of twenty-five games. (However, I am sure that father Gullo didn’t allow his son to read Hayhurst’s The Bullpen Gospels when it was later published, because it is filled not only with profanity but also with the extremely crude activities engaged in by him and his teammates during a single season in the minors. (Well, nobody’s perfect it would seem, not even Dirk Hayhurst.)

Even after two suspensions for drug violations, Manny Ramirez had never admitted his guilt. But just as I finished reading “Trading Manny,” I ran across a news story in which Manny confessed. Now, he said, he has found the Lord and has changed his ways. He knows that he should never have used PED’s, but that’s in the past and he knows he can still hit, despite being 42-years old. All he needs, he says, is the opportunity to prove it. Never mind that he has failed to do so in the minors during the previous two years.

Manny won’t make it back to the big leagues, not because of his past drug abuse, but rather, despite his claims to the contrary, because he can no longer hit. If he could, major league teams would be lining up to sign him.

THE WAY YOU WEAR YOUR HAT -- Part III

Clint Eastwood

Dean Martin

Richard Boone

Dale Evans

James Garner

Monte Hale

Pernell Roberts

John Russell

Eric Fleming

Dan Blocker

Nick Adams

Michael Landon

Fuzzy Q. Jones (Al St. John)

ROBERT CULP

Hugh O'Brian

James Drury

Annie Oakley

Billy the Kid

Calamity Jane

 

MEDITATIONS IN GREEN by Stephen Wright

Stephen Wright’s debut novel, first published in 1983, is a difficult one to categorize. The Amazon blurb describes it as being “sardonic, searing, seductive, and surreal…” It is certainly all of that.

It is also overwritten, with sentences that cover an entire page and paragraphs that cover more than a page. After reading about ten or fifteen pages, I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to finish the book and after about thirty pages, I was almost positive that I wasn’t. In fact, I almost put it aside, but knowing that if I did I would never pick it up again, I soldiered on.

The book consists of vignettes, some as short as a paragraph and others that last as much as twenty pages. They alternate between a third person account of events that occurred during the Vietnam War and a first person account of events that take place in a large American city after the war – a war that never ends for the narrator, the book’s central character.

At first, I was put off by the long sentences, the long paragraphs, and the alternating settings. Eventually, however, I realized that while it was true that at times the book was chaotic to the point of being incoherent that what it was attempting to describe was also chaotic and incoherent. It was at that point that I was able to adjust to the rhythm of the book and found myself not wanting to put it down.

Walter Kendrick in his overall favorable review in the New York Times wrote, Wright’s “talent is impressive, though unruly.” And that “some of the excesses of the book can be ascribed to its being a first novel, mulled over for at least ten years. It tries to do too much – to describe the war, its aftereffects, the psychology of drug addiction and (most murkily) the role that green plants play in all these matters.”

Critic Nathaniel Rich in his review of the book wrote, “A good war novel forces you to visualize, in vivid detail, the horror and dysfunction of combat. A great war novel goes further – it makes you fear the horror personally.” By that definition, Meditations in Green is a great war novel.

I remember once reading that all war novels, by their very nature, were anti-war novels, the reason being that any faithful depiction of the horror of combat would have to leave the reader with a visceral abhorrence of war. Meditations in Green does that. Furthermore, it is more than a novel about the Vietnam War. In the tradition of Catch-22 and M*A*S*H, it is a novel about the absurdity of war – any war. Those two novels contain some humorous moments, and so does Meditations in Green. But the humor in all three novels comes in the dark variety.

The Amazon blurb also says that many consider Meditations in Green to be the greatest of all the Vietnam War novels. I have always been partial to James Webb’s Fields of Fire and Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and now the more recent Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes. I always recommend them without reservation to other readers. I will also recommend Meditations in Green, but my advice for anyone who does decide to read it is that they stay the course. Don’t give up on it too early.

Is Meditations in Green the greatest Vietnam War novel? Well, maybe not, but it does belong in the conversation.

THE INFORMANT by Kurt Eichenwald

I stumbled onto this book on the bargain shelf at Barnes & Noble. Since it cost practically nothing and looked mildly interesting, I bought it. It went in my TBR bookcase where it languished for years. Oh, occasionally I would pick it up, blow the dust away and read the blurbs and think that it looked mildly interesting, and then place it back on the shelf.

Not long ago, while looking for something to read I picked it up again, and thought, this looks mildly interesting, and decided that I would read it. After all, according to the cover of my paperback copy, it had been made into a major motion picture starring Matt Damon. By the time that I finished the prologue, I was hooked.

It isn’t often that a work of nonfiction can be described as a page-turner – but that is a good description of The Informant. And there are a lot of pages to turn – 500 plus, in fact. Investigative reporter Kurt Eichenwald leaves no stone unturned and no fact unexamined or unreported in his thoroughly researched account of a price fixing conspiracy that occurred in the ‘90’s. Involved in the conspiracy were Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the hugely successful and politically powerful agribusiness corporation, as well as two Japanese and two South Korean corporations.

The prices being fixed included, among others, citric acid and high fructose corn syrup, additives that are found in a countless number of food products. And then there was lysine, an amino acid added to livestock feed, in order to fatten hogs and chickens. The result is that the prices of these additives were artificially propped up and that drove up the expenses of the food producers, which were subsequently passed on to – of course – the consumer.

ADM’s advertising slogan was and is “supermarket to the world.” But because its competitors wanted to keep prices high and its customers wanted to keep them low, the private and extremely cynical inside slogan among its top executives was “competitors are our friends and customers are our enemies.”

I know what I have described thus far doesn’t sound like much of a page-turner. But it is. What makes it so is that the FBI was able to persuade one of ADM’s top executives to wear a wire in order to tape him and other ADM executives and those of the four Asian corporations, engaging in price fixing. This cooperating witness was at the time (and may still be) the highest-ranking corporate whistleblower in U.S. history. His name is Mark Whitacre.

And what a witness he was! I’m not about to go into details about him or his actions because it is impossible to do so in a brief summary. Also, it would be like spoiling the plot in a whodunit – which is how this book reads.

Eichenwald wrote in an afterword:

“This is a book about the malleable nature of truth. As the story shows, reality can serve as the handmaiden of fiction….Throughout these pages, I’ve tried to play upon that line between fact and fantasy. While everything described in this book occurred, the story was intentionally structured to lend temporary credence to some of the many lies told in this investigation. Essentially, I was attempting to put readers in the same uncertain position as the investigators, all while dropping hints – admittedly subtle at times – about where reality began.”

He accomplished his goal. But beware; this is a complex, convoluted story. There are more characters than in a Russian novel. The reader needs a scorecard to keep up with the players. Fortunately, Eichenwald provides one in the front of the book. Also, complicating the story are the bureaucratic battles fought between FBI investigators and federal prosecutors (to be expected; it happens all the time) as well as turf battles between the U.S. Attorneys offices in Illinois and the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., not to mention internal struggles within the Justice Department. All of this can make it difficult to stay with the story.

My only complaint about the book is that Eichenwald could have streamlined his account somewhat without detracting from the readers understanding of the important facts of the case. But he had done his research – and how – and he was eager to report it – and did he ever.

The book was originally published in 2000. The movie was released in 2009. While the book gives much attention to the FBI agents’ investigation, and a great deal of space to the efforts of the prosecutors (whose in-fighting came close to derailing the case), the movie, unable to film the book in its entirety, concentrates on the whistleblower and his amazing antics. Greed and malfeasance that results in international price fixing conspiracies are nothing to laugh about, and yet, when one reads the book, one can’t help but laugh at times – even out loud sometime. In fact, the movie was promoted as a comedy – a comedy about price fixing!

The book has been compared to the fiction of Tom Clancy, Scott Turow, Michael Crichton, and, of course, John Grisham. But those writers’ imaginations pale in comparison to what Eichenwald recounts in his nonfiction book. One critic wrote, “…with its dizzying array of subplots, twists, and political maneuvers, this book is more like Grisham’s entire oeuvre compressed into 600 pages.”

Columnist Liz Smith nailed the book precisely when she wrote, “[It] reads like John Grisham on acid….”

The title of the original edition of the book is The Informant: A True Story. The title of the paperback movie tie-in (published in 2000) that I own is The Informant! A True Story.  I am always wary of book, and especially movie, titles that announce that the story is a “true story.” More times than not, it isn’t. But this one is.

Exclamation marks in titles are red flags, too. They usually promise more than what they deliver. This one was added because the movie, which heavily concentrates on Mark Whitacre and his role in the proceedings, has to be seen to be believed. But it is true, too. And I have to admit that in this case the exclamation mark is warranted!

As a friend said about the book, “Truth (even when it’s built around lies) is and always will be stranger than fiction.”

Kurt Eichenwald