15 Hours, 28 Minutes
Published June 2022 by Penguin Random House
Publisher's Summary:
Patrick Radden Keefe has garnered prizes ranging from the National Magazine Award to the Orwell Prize to the National Book Critics Circle Award for his meticulously-reported, hypnotically-engaging work on the many ways people behave badly. Rogues brings together a dozen of his most celebrated articles from The New Yorker. As Keefe says in his preface “They reflect on some of my abiding preoccupations: crime and corruption, secrets and lies, the permeable membrane separating licit and illicit worlds, the bonds of family, the power of denial.”
Keefe brilliantly explores the intricacies of forging $150,000 vintage wines, examines whether a whistleblower who dared to expose money laundering at a Swiss bank is a hero or a fabulist, spends time in Vietnam with Anthony Bourdain, chronicles the quest to bring down a cheerful international black market arms merchant, and profiles a passionate death penalty attorney who represents the “worst of the worst,” among other bravura works of literary journalism.
The appearance of his byline in The New Yorker is always an event, and collected here for the first time readers can see his work forms an always enthralling but deeply human portrait of criminals and rascals, as well as those who stand up against them.
My Thoughts:
Rachel Maddow says, "Every time he writes a book - I read it." Same here, Rachel, same here. She also reads all of his articles, something I'd never done before. Until now. Rogues is a collection of some of his writings for The New Yorker and now I'm wondering where I can find the rest of his New Yorker back list.
In this collection, Keefe covers every kind of rogue from murderers (drug kingpin El Chapo, Dutch criminal Wim Holleeder, and a rare female mass murderer, Amy Bishop) to celebrity chef and television personality Anthony Bourdain. The essays cover topics from counterfeit wine to the dirty secrets of Swiss banking to illegal arms trading. In these articles, he looks at two different lawyers who defend killers, both for very different reasons.
Keefe's great skills are his ability to make the articles relatable and readable. He looks for ways to help us understand why people do the things they do. He never tries to make the bad guys look good but he tries to help us understand who they are. And while he has always clearly done his research, his work never feels like he's dumping every thing he's learned into the article, obliterating the story underneath. And the story is the point - Keefe is a storyteller, even if his stories are those of real people and, in this case, their misdeeds.
Of course, like all collections, there were some stories that struck me more than others. The story of Astrid Holleeder, a lawyer who fears for her life because she fears a notorious killer she helped put in prison for life will find a way to have her killed. That criminal is her brother, a man who became famous when he was part of the kidnapping of Freddie Heineken (yes, those Heinekens). She and her sister had known for years that their brother was a criminal but finally they had enough of living in fear of what he might do to them so they wore wires and got him to incriminate himself. And still they live in fear of what he might do to them.
Another story that will stick with me was that of Mark Burnett. Burnett, as you know, is the producer of Survivor. In 2002, he leased the skating rink in Central Park to host the season finale. The Trump skating rink. Burnett had already had the idea for another reality show and as soon as he saw Donald Trump sitting in the audience, he knew what to do. He immediately began feeding Trump's ego, cultivating a relationship that would allow Burnett to convince Trump to star in his new show, The Apprentice. Until then, Trump was considered something of a joke in the business community and the building they were set to film in was more than a little worn at the edges. The production company not only made their floor of the building look good, they turned Donald or The Donald into Mr. Trump. Burnett allowed Trump (partly because he knew it would make good television and partly because Trump wasn't able to learn his lines), to let his own personality come through. The show created an image of Trump as a straight-shooting master businessman. It seems almost impossible that Trump would have become president if not for Mark Burnett. And now I have to stop watching everything else Burnett produces.
Another is the story a lawyer, Judy Clarke who defends notorious killers, the worst of the worst. Amongst Clarke's clients have been Ted Kaczynski and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (the younger of the Boston Marathon bombers). Clarke is a staunch advocate against the death penalty and had never had a client sentenced to death until Tsarnaev. While the death penalty has resulted in the deaths of innocent people, Clarke isn't representing those people. The people she represents are guilty and she doesn't try to present them as otherwise. Still, she fights hard to save their lives. In no small part because, as in the case of Tsarnaev, the families of the victims want that as well. They want to be spared the emotional toll of endless appeals and all of the publicity that comes with it. I didn't come away from this article caring any more about those terrible people, but it certainly heightened my conviction that the death penalty is wrong.
Finally, there was the piece on Anthony Bourdain. I'm not entirely sure that this piece fits in with the others, although Bourdain would certainly be considered a rogue and a rebel. While Bourdain became famous as something of a punk rock chef and all-around bad boy, in later years, Keefe revels, Bourdain was disciplined and hyperorganized, controlling every aspect of not only episodes of his show but his life as well. He was also a man that didn't have a lot of old friends but who made a lot of friends in his travels. If you're a fan of Bourdain, you'll enjoy this piece. If you're not a fan going in, you may rethink your opinion when you learn more about a man who overcame addiction but never overcame his demons.
As I've done with Keefe's other books, I highly recommend this collection. I especially recommend it for those who can't face the idea of reading a 500-page book about criminal activity but could manage an essay. You, too, will become a Keefe fan. You may even find your self having the same opinion as Rachel Maddow.
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