Citizen K: The Deeply Weird American Journey of Brett Kimberlin - Hardcover

Singer, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679429999 ISBN 13: 9780679429999

Publisher: Knopf, 1996

Synopsis

From the author of the bestselling Funny Money, the saga of a master drug smuggler, convicted bomber, suspected murderer, jailhouse lawyer, and media manipulator, whose story about supplying marijuana to a future vice president is only the beginning. This is a portrait of an elusive man and a social history that crisscrosses the republic over the past three decades. National ads/media.

About this title

Review:

This book relates a journalist's worst nightmare: of getting deeply involved in a "big story" based on information from a single source who turns out to be a world-class liar. During the 1992 Presidential campaign Singer wrote a story for the New Yorker about the allegations by Brett Kimberlin, a former marijuana dealer then in prison for a series of bombings, that he had once sold marijuana to Vice President Dan Quayle. (The cartoonist Garry Trudeau was another journalist who pushed this story hard.) After signing a book contract to expand the story, Singer invested more and more time,and became frustrated by holes, inconsistencies and dead ends in Kimberlin's tale. Embroiled in a Kafkaesque mystery, Singer recounts his painstaking journalistic detective work, and his growing sense that this would be the story that got away.

From Kirkus Reviews:

An absorbing investigation into the life and tall tales of Brett Kimberlin, the jailed drug dealer who won brief notoriety by claiming to have sold drugs to Dan Quayle. At first glance, Citizen K would seem to have little going for it: a subject who would hardly seem to deserve such attention and an author (Funny Money, 1985, etc.) who now seems bent on excusing himself for an overly sympathetic (and much criticized) 1992 profile of Kimberlin in the New Yorker. But this examination exonerates itself early and thoroughly. Kimberlin, an intellectually gifted and cunning drug dealer, jailhouse lawyer, and liar, turns out to be an intriguing figure. From his drug abusing early days to his eventual arrest and conviction as the figure responsible for a series of baffling bombings in Indiana, Kimberlin's criminal exploits are recounted in fast-paced, engaging prose. Most readers will be eager for the chapters on Kimberlin's claims about Quayle (he insisted that Quayle, when in law school, had regularly bought marijuana from him), and Singer does not disappoint. Through dogged reporting and with a healthy skepticism, Singer sorts through the conflicting accounts and reveals a man whose idea of the truth is utterly malleable. Kimberlin, it becomes clear, never encountered a situation that he couldn't somehow exploit for gain. Mindful of his early role in promoting Kimberlin's claims about Quayle, Singer is full of contrition, presenting himself as having been sucked into Kimberlin's ``narcissistic universe, a place far beyond the gravity-bound realities of politics, truth, and justice.'' But instead of drowning in regret, the repentant author turns his book into a lively revenge tale. In the delightful final chapters he cleverly tricks Kimberlin into exposing his own mendacity. For politicos, journalists, or anyone who has ever been pulled into the distorted worldview of a dangerous smooth talker, the story of Brett Kimberlin is a valuable one, expertly unearthed and reported by Singer. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0679429999
• ISBN 13: 9780679429999
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 381