Customer Reviews

The Runner: A True Account of the Amazing Lies and Fantastical Adventures of the Ivy League Impostor James Hogue

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I have never written an Amazon review before--but I was so astonished at the poor quality of this book that I decided I had to write.

If you are seeking a coherent account of fascinating con man James Hogue, don't buy this book. You will be hugely disappointed.

Although I read Samuels's "New Yorker" piece on Hogue years ago, I still found it impossible to glean from this very short (176-page, small-format) book even the basics of Hogue's actual lies and misdeeds. I defy anyone to produce even a bare-bones outline or chronology of Hogue's adult life from this book; instead, there are tantalizing references to places Hogue lived, and people he knew, that produce growing frustration as it becomes clear that the book simply is not going to describe its subject in any reasonable depth.

If Samuels had bothered to present his subject's history with any clarity, his musings about Hogue's motives might possibly have been more meaningful. But I doubt it. Samuels's understanding of human nature appears shallow--an impression reinforced when he very occasionally includes verbatim material from his exchanges with Hogue. His questions and responses to Hogue are puzzlingly obtuse and off-point, and, not surprisingly, elicit no useful or even memorable material.

This book could desperately have used an old-time editor, someone who'd have said, "Number one, we make clear the basics about your subject's life. Number two, we eliminate the self-indulgent and lengthy paeans to the Rockies. Number three, we try to get you another interview with Hogue, then help you develop searching questions that stand a chance of producing enlightening responses. Number four, we corral your ethical ponderings and political social commentary so that they are injected after you have given your readers a firm grounding in your subject, and so are not irritating, intrusive, and irrelevant. Number five, we edit your phrasing to eliminate very basic writing errors, like subject-verb (and even verb-verb) disagreements, sloppy repetitions ("near a water tower in a nearby forest"), and passages so poorly and/or confusingly written as to stop even dedicated readers cold."

Sign me one very disappointed purchaser!

After reading this book, I felt some pity for James Hogue, who is clearly a sick man. It is a shame he was not able to channel his intelligence and charisma in a more positive direction. However, the real shame is that he didn't score a more competent biographer. Just as James Hogue was able to con most people into liking him easily, David Samuels seems unable to get his sources to trust him or speak with him about anything of substance, James Hogue included. By the end of this book, I found myself repulsed by David Samuels and his self-aggrandizing writing. This was a waste of what could have been a really fascinating story. Actually, you should buy it for a good laugh - David Samuels had me snorting out loud at him several times during the book. I just don't think he was trying to be funny.

Some of the professional reviews were good so I decided to give it a chance. It was poorly written and hard to follow. I quit reading half way through. Also it felt like there was not nearly enough interesting material to make a book and it should have remained an average magazine article. Don't waste your money.

I didn't particularly notice or care about the poor quality of the writing, but this book was boring. It's essentially the article that appeared in the New Yorker, re-packaged in hardcover (at a cost of $22) and padded with the author's stultifying theories about "why people lie." (No, I'm not kidding.) Save your money. If you really want to read it, you'll be able to get it used or in the remainders bin very soon.

When I had read the editorial review about this book, the premise seemed so very compelling. A con man, James Hogue, shifts through an assortment of aliases and back stories through a series of mis-adventures and manages to fleece one of the more respected members of the perennially navel-gazing educational establishment (Princeton). There is so much potential, and yet Samuels comes up so far short.

To begin with, the book lacks deftness. Rather than remaining focused on the story of Hogue, Samuels sprinkles in his own perceptions and prejudices of the people he interviews. It was in moments like these that my attention began to wander. Quite frankly, David Samuels is not even as remotely interesting as James Hogue. The two are not even in the same league. I do not care that Samuels managed to 'escape' his Orthodox Jewish community by being accepted into and graduating from Harvard. This little tidbit has no real place whatsoever in this story - it is a self congratulating non sequitur, at best.

However, the main issue I have with this book is that its final objective is to serve up an indictment of the Ivy League educational system, and our society in general, based on the (correct) premise that our society is not as 'meritorious' as it should be due to financially enforced social stratification - the overarching power of the Old Boy's Club, as it were. I find this goal to be wholeheartedly unambitious.

The real goal of the book should have been to more assiduously dissect James Hogue - or in the absence of such an endeavor, to make it more interesting by proving greater detail of his cons.

Finally, while not poorly written, the prose is most typically flat and uninspired. A rewrite, with a slight tweak in focus and the culling of significant chaff, would result in a much better book. Hopefully (somehow) this version would be longer - because 173 pages of story with a largish font is not worth the hardcover price.

The Runner is a engaging read about a fascinating character. The original article was the tip of the iceberg and I appreciated the expanded treatment. David's writing is insightful and funny. The books leaves me wanting more but in a way that keeps the fascination alive. Like a movie with an open ending I am left to wonder about specific events and ponder what it really means to reinvent yourself in a world that is so clearly driven by unfair rules. No one likes to be lied to but sometimes lies can be inspiring.

This is a totally fascinating book. People who have actually read this book love it. Ignore the one star reviews from the friends of the subject. David Samuels didn't get to be a writer for The New Yorker, Harpers, The Atlantic, etc by being a boring writer or a bad reporter. He sits squarely in the great tradition of new journalism pioneered by Joan Didion and Tom Wolfe. He is part of a dying breed of magazine journalists who bring craft and imagination to stories that lesser writers ream of.

He writes beautifully. He tells a great story. This is book is smart, engaging, and insightful. What more could you ask for?

This is a book about James Hogue, an impostor, a small-time thief, and a very fast runner (hence the title of the book). Hogue used several aliases during his life however this book dwells a lot on his Princeton University years, during which he used the name Alexi Santana.

Before you read this book, you should know that the author was not able to get much cooperation from Hogue except for short and cryptic answers to a few questions. Most of the information in this book came from interviews with acquaintances of Hogue and from court documents and other sources such as his student application file to Princeton U, which contained deceptive information.

This book is filled with eclectic facts and comments about Hogue's life and lies but it does not give much insight on who Hogue really is, why he deceived people, or on how he felt about it. Throughout the book the author fills these gaps with speculation and subjective interpretations of little added value.

The result is a book weak on facts about Hogue and long on speculation. The author dwells on the weakness of the Princeton U admission procedures, and on the fact that rich college students at Princeton are not necessarily of superior intelligence but they just have the right connections. The author enjoys a bit too much lambasting Princeton U and other Ivy League colleges, again without much substantive evidence. As this book was written by a journalist, I expected it to be more factual, not suppositions and speculation. The author researched this story for 10 years but he missed his opportunity to give his reader a fact-filled exciting solid account of what happened. This book felt like an unfinished investigative report with too many remaining holes filled with speculation.

I can't recommend that you read this book except if you have a specific interest in Hogue's life. Interestingly, some Amazon reviewers allege that Hogue's friends have been posting negative reviews on Amazon at Hogue's request, so I should specify that I do not know Hogue and I am just someone who happens to have read this book, and these are my own objective comments.

Samuels has taken an admirable stab at dissecting this enigmatic Gatsbyesque con man's psyche for motive, astutely tabulating the paltry gain from the years of petty crime. In a funny aside that Samuels to his credit puts in the book, Hogue responds to one of Samuels's elaborate and quirky questionnaires by closing with this jibe: "What's with the janitor garb? Are you trying to show your solidarity with the lumpen?"

The book is an elaboration of a New Yorker article and probably should have stayed as such (much like Barry Werth's Scarlet Professor), as it feels stretched and padded. Although not a great writer, Samuels rightly senses that he holds compelling subject matter. One fault is that the chronology would have been much better as a simple linear progression; it confusingly yoyos between past and future. Also, instead of just letting the story tell itself, Samuels often intrudes with exaggerated veneration of the privilege of a Princeton (or his own Harvard) education, with admissions committees' self deluding liberal smugness, and with largely irrelevant autobiographical items.

Hogue ultimately proves uncooperative and Samuels is left to speculate on his quarry, but perhaps there is no very profound mechanism at work here. Although I have to admit I'm looking forward to seeing the documentary Con Man. One wonders what a Truman Capote or a Norman Mailer might have done with this material.

Samuels has produced a minor classic of American journalism, a story too juicy and too much fun to be fiction. People spend their lives inventing themselves, and novelists can't compete with a self-invention like Hogue. "The Runner" captures him brilliantly.