Confidential Sources [Paperback]

Barbara Fischkin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 31, 2006

She’ll take Manhattan. He’ll take Managua. When two ambitious reporters from the same New York newspaper get married, something’s got to give. And in this wry, witty tale of a modern globe-spanning romance, what gives is the conventional and the expected–as fact turns more fantastic than fiction.

Jim Mulvaney has never met a story he didn’t think he could write. Barbara Fischkin isn’t sure she can write anything in the midst of their maddening marriage. But while Mulvaney is following his legendary nose for war, disaster, and scandal, sending them careening from Central America to Beijing, Fischkin is finding the stories between the lines–and they’re both learning the real inside scoop from baby Jack and his big brother Danny…the most revolutionary sources of all.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Two competitive reporters, the eponymous author^B and her husband, Jim Mulvaney, travel the globe while trying to figure out if they can stay married without causing bodily harm in this continuation of Exclusive (2005). The intrepid reporters start their new lives together by covering Nicaragua for Newsday. Thanks to Mulvaney's machinations, they are asked to leave the country. They end up in Mexico City, where each tries to outscoop the other. The couple then travel to Asia with their young son in tow, searching for the next big story without getting into too much trouble with local authorities. As responsibilities grow along with the family, the couple learn about life from the travails of their sons. All is brought to life with humor and compassion as Fischkin considers the demands of marriage, parenthood, and career in an amusing novel that may or may not be a tall tale. Patty Engelmann
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

As a journalist, Barbara Fischkin covered stories in New York, Latin America, Hong Kong, Dublin, Belfast-and Ronkonkoma-and is the author of Exclusive: Reporters in Love...and War and Muddy Cup: A Dominican Family Comes of Age in a New America. She lives in Long Beach, Long Island with her husband, who continues to be Jim Mulvaney, and their two sons.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 338 pages
• Publisher: Delta (October 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385338007
• ISBN-13: 978-0385338004
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,726,207 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The official version: I am a novelist, nonfiction author and journalist. My books are: "Muddy Cup: A Dominican Family Comes of Age in a New America," which is nonfiction. "Exclusive: Reporters in Love...And War," a novel. And the forthcoming novel "Confidential Sources," which will be published in October 2006.

I was on staff at Newsday for about eight years in the eighties and have covered stories at home and abroad, specifically in Dublin, Belfast, the Dominican Republic, Mexico City, Guatemala and Hong Kong. During a writing career that began at the Midwood High School Argus in Brooklyn, New York circa 1970, my articles have also appeared in numerous other newspapers and magazines including the New Yorker, the New York Times (travel), Wigwag, the Boston Globe, the International Herald Tribune, Mademoiselle etc. In 1986 I won the Livingston Award for International Reporting for a series of Newsday articles that I later expanded for the book "Muddy Cup."

The version I've never written: The first thing I ever wanted to be was a torch singer. My mother, encouraging in most respects despite my portrayal of her fictional alter ego in "Exclusive," suggested that to succeed at this, it would be helpful if I could carry a tune. Acting was next but all my acting teachers had spoken to my mother. Or at least it seemed that way.

It wasn't until college that I considered writing as a career, although I had written my first short story at the age of nine. Fiction. It was about a child poisoned after she, quite purposefully, swallowed her grandmother's pills. When my mother saw that story I think she regretted her critique of my singing.

Some of the backstory: It wasn't until college at the State University of New York at Albany that I had the luck to find two teachers who told me that I could and, indeed, should write. They were William Rowley, an English Professor who, in 1974, ran the school's new journalism department and William Kennedy,a novelist and former journalist who would write the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "Ironweed."

Inspired by them, I barged into the Saratogian, the Gannett Daily in Saratoga Springs, and "demanded" an (unpaid) internship.

About a decade and two newspapers later, feeling that I wanted to write works of more substance, I left daily journalism to try my hand at magazine stories. What I hoped is that someday I would write a book.

In 1997, 22 years after I got that student internship, I published my first book. "Muddy Cup." When I say that it is a work of narrative nonfiction, I mean that every word is true. Even the transitions are true. I've been a journalism professor at New York University and at Adelphi University and, as my former students know, I am a hard-liner on this subject. My garage is filled with the notebooks and tapes to prove it. There's nothing wrong with making up stories and I loved doing just that with my novels. But I make sure to call them novels - to tell readers that they are works of fiction

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank you Barbara!, November 2, 2006

By 

Advocates For Autism "Sally Colletti" (NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Confidential Sources (Paperback)

Thank you Barbara for finally offering a refreshing narrative on what life is like with an autistic child, as well as how she continues on as "normal" as possible for your other child and career. Barbara treats the reader like a best friend and it helps to abate the loneliness that is often a major part of a parent's life with autism. Now if only I had a large block of time to sit and read the entire book in one sitting!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars And They Called it Yuppie Love..., January 19, 2007

By 

BeatleBangs1964 (United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Confidential Sources (Paperback)

Barbara and Jim Mulvaney (called Mulvaney) are globe trotting reporters, each trying to outdo the other. This "sequel" to "Exclusive" follows these reporters to Nicaragua on assignment from "Long Island Newsday." At one point Mulvaney buys a baby girl from a poor family and presents her to Barbara, who is understandably nonplussed. After a short period of raising the girl named Caridad ("Charity" in Spanish, named by Mulvaney because the girl had previously gone unnamed), Barbara's mother comes to visit from Brooklyn. On page 129 it is said that the baby leaves, but where Caridad went or who ended up raising her is never said.

Mulvaney somehow manages to get them expelled from the country, so it's on to Mexico. Their son Danny was born there in 1987. After some humorous descriptions of the local protocol, the trio travels to Hong Kong. Danny becomes trilingual, speaking Spanish, English and some Cantonese. While both are searching the globe for that breakthrough story, meanwhile their sons are providing them with news from the home front.

Danny's brother Jack was born shortly after Danny's third birthday; Danny suffers from a severe ear infection and fever. The once verbal child becomes nonverbal and exhibiting autistic behavior. Within a short space of time, he is displaying behavior suggestive of Kanner's autism.

The family returns to the U.S. and settles in California and later, Long Island. The boys grow and thrive; Jack's input makes a good story even better. One especially funny anecdote is found at the beginning of the book. Mulvaney acted a fool at Jack's hockey game and was understandably asked to leave. A copy of the Code of Conduct at the games is included and one can only smile at Jack's take on this as well.

My favorite parts were where Jack describes Danny's behavior and how he accepts him unconditionally. I love the way Jack makes it plain that Danny is a valuable and vital human being with a lot of gifts to share and offer. Hats off to Jack!

A good book. The only thing that could be considered confusing is where the fiction leaves off and real life reporting of their lives begins.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Confidential Sources confirms that Barbara Fischkin has penned another winner!, November 30, 2006

By 

NoMercury "Lujene G. Clark" (Carthage, MO United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Confidential Sources (Paperback)

Stop the presses! Confidential Sources confirms that Barbara Fischkin has penned another winner! In her delightful sequel to Exclusive: Reporters in Love...and War, she once again brings her readers along for a wild ride following the escapades of two globe-trotting investigative journalists, "Fischkin" and "Mulvaney." An engaging tale, often poignant yet always entertaining, that allows us to vicariously live the exciting lives of husband and wife reporters searching out that next big news story as they build their careers and along the way, their family. Although the protagonists of Confidential Sources have the same names as the author and her husband, they are fictional characters. Or perhaps, better said, the fictional alter-egos of the real-life Barbara Fischkin and Jim Mulvaney!

Fischkin shows us that life is often like following a juicy news lead; the story you finally report is far different, yet far more interesting, than what you first anticipated. In tandem with her journey to scooping the next big news story from her husband, the Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist, Jim Mulvaney, she graces her readers with a honest look into the world of autism. With her wry humor intact, Fischkin portrays the heartache, anger, fear and even moments of sheer joy that every family experiences when raising a child diagnosed with autism.

In a delightful surprise chapter written in the voice of her younger son, Jack, one gains insight on how dramatically life is impacted both good and bad, for children living with an autistic sibling. If the real-life Jack is as good a writer as his fictional alter-ego, then the Mulvaney/Fischkin writing talent is secure for another generation. Even at his young age, "Jack Mulvaney" the character has wisdom beyond his years: He recognizes that his older brother, Danny, even without speech and language since a toddler, has many gifts to share, not only with his family but with humanity as well. What a service this book does by showing us how precious life can be when parents fully love and accept every child regardless of obstacles.

If you only read one book this year, it must be Confidential Sources!