Bunk

The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News

By: Kevin Young

Narrated by: Mirron Willis

Bunk traces the history of the hoax as a peculiarly American phenomenon, examining what motivates hucksters and makes the rest of us so gullible. Disturbingly, Young finds that fakery is woven from stereotype and suspicion, race being the most insidious American hoax of all. He chronicles how Barnum came to fame by displaying figures like Joice Heth, a black woman whom he pretended was the 161-year-old nursemaid to George Washington, and What Is It?, an African-American man Barnum professed was a newly discovered missing link in evolution.

Bunk then turns to the hoaxing of history and the ways that forgers, plagiarists, and journalistic fakers invent backstories and falsehoods to sell us lies about themselves and about the world in our own time, from pretend Native Americans Grey Owl and Nasdijj to the deadly imposture of Clark Rockefeller, from the made-up memoirs of James Frey to the identity theft of Rachel Dolezal. In this brilliant and timely work, Young asks what it means to live in a post-factual world of "truthiness" where everything is up for interpretation and everyone is subject to a pervasive cynicism that damages our ideas of reality, fact, and art.

©2017 Kevin Young (P)2017 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

The author blames everything on racism...........

I waded thru this book waiting to find something note worthy. The author blames all the things listed on the front cover all fall to racism. Two thirds of the way thru the book I looked up the author. It seems that racism is his major authoring theme. Granedt there were a few ( very few) good and correct points, however to blame racism for everything instead of personal responsibility is very myopic.

wordy

This book has a lot of good points and ideas but it is extremely wordy. the words flow by and after a few minutes one wonders what the point was to the word salad.

stories are fairly interesting

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

This was a pretty good book... the stories are hit or miss. I enjoyed some immensely... others not as much.

Which character – as performed by Mirron Willis – was your favorite?

Characters were all done well... none in particular stand out. Competent narrator.

Mirron Willis is the worst narrator I’ve ever listened to

I’ve been listening to audiobooks for well over a decade, and have never heard a worse narrator.

Willis strains to pronounce “memoir” as if he were French- ironically while discussing memoirs of invented identities. I could forgive his mispronunciation of “Agassiz” and “Daguerreotype” were it not for his ridiculous insistence on a French-y sounding “memoir”.

Long vowels are used incorrectly. (ie; “thee” before consonants, stressed “ā” mid-sentence)

Rhythm and intonation are irregular, and sound like those of an inexperienced reader.

Overall, the narration sounds jilted and unnatural. It made a good book almost unbearable to listen to.

Interesting instances and interpretations

Although I don't agree with a lot of the arguments about the parallels of some of the hoaxes story and the parties involved whereby the story (subject) of the hoaxes imitates the story of the hoaxer, especially with some of the case being made in the 'negative space', namely not what is said but what is not, that this parallel can be drawn is interesting. Further the analysis in places feels lengthy, and although all ways considered and insightful, the depth occasionally does seem excessive, and one looses track of all that is outlined. Clearly this is at least partially due to the 'audio' rather than book, for myself.

Great, interesting stories which give an interesting twist on Kurt Andersen's Fantasyland, not in that it gives a different perspective, but an in-depth analysis of the public fraud for fraud's sake rather than the deliberate deception and acceptance thereof.