The Secret Parts of Fortune: Three Decades of Intense Investigations and Edgy Enthusiasms [Paperback]

Ron Rosenbaum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 19, 2001

One part intellectual and one part private eye, Ron Rosenbaum takes readers into "the secret parts" of the great mysteries, controversies, and enigmas of our time, including:

• the occult rituals of Skull and Bones, the legendary Yale secret society that has produced spies and presidents, including George Bush and George W. Bush.

• the Secrets of the Little Blue Box, the classic story of "Captain Crunch" and the birth of hacker culture.

• the "unorthodox" cancer-cure clinics of Tijuana.

• the Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal.

• the unsolved murder of JFK's mistress.

Also including sharp, funny cultural critiques that range from Elvis to Elisabeth KÜbler-Ross, Bill Gates to Oliver Stone, and J.D. Salinger to the Zagat® guide, The Secret Parts of Fortune is a vital record of American culture.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

One part intellectual and one part journalist, Ron Rosenbaum offers a thick book full of his writing from Esquire, Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazine, and The New York Observer (where he is currently a columnist). Perhaps not every selection will interest every reader--the diversity of topics is incredible--but there is probably something, or many things, for everyone in The Secret Parts of Fortune.

An outstanding entry is an excerpt from his celebrated book Explaining Hitler. Other highlights include a hilarious interview with Robin Leach (entitled "The Frantic Screaming Voice of the Rich and Famous"), an explanation of why Murray Kempton "is the best prose writer in America," and a short history of computer hackers. One of Rosenbaum's finest pieces focuses on the cancer-cure underground: "False hope springs eternal," he writes, describing how phony cancer "cures seem to spring up and sweep the nation like religious revivals, a new one at least every decade." Yet he's sympathetic--or at least mildly understanding--of the motivations behind the fake healers: the movement isn't "composed mainly of cash-hungry charlatans and snake-oil salesmen eager to make an easy killing off the sufferings and hopes of cancer victims. In fact, among the healers, the prophets, and the alchemists, you find less greed than evangelical fervor--the rapturous conviction of religious visionaries."

Rosenbaum is rougher with Bill Gates; he lights into the billionaire's fabled high-tech home, which he says "exhibits the distinctive feature of the totalitarian mind: the inability to distinguish between private and public spheres. It suggests this isn't just the way he wants to run his house, it's the way he wants to run the world: total surveillance, enforced entertainment, everyone isolated in programmable pods." Yet another standout is Rosenbaum's article on Kim Philby, the British intelligence officer who spied against his native land on behalf of the Soviets. Or did he? Rosenbaum considers the fascinating "possibility that Philby had been not a Soviet double agent but a British triple agent." And there's so much more. This rich book is full of provocative and gripping prose, and highly recommended. --John J. Miller --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Rosenbaum's third collection of articles and essays (he's "The Edgy Enthusiast" columnist for the New York Observer) shows again that he is one of our most original writers of nonfiction. His two previous compilations made sense, respectively, of the 1970s and '80s; this much thicker volume collects a dozen or so pieces each from these decades, and adds 33 from the 1990s. Prefaced by a long anecdotal introductory essayDin which the journalist explains both his own history and the story behind the compiled articlesDthe book offers up consistently lively and thoughtful writing that combines investigative reporting, cultural context, humor, self-deprecation and erudition. A Yale graduate with a degree in English, Rosenbaum (Explaining Hitler) started contributing in the 1970s to such publications as Esquire, New York, Harper's and the Village Voice almost by accident; later, propelled by his interest in finding out what is hidden beneath the surface of things, more essays appeared in Vanity Fair and the New York Times Magazine. His pieces tackle the theories of conspiracy buffs (Rosenbaum aptly calls himself a "buff buff")Dfrom rumors about the real motivations of notorious double agent Kim Philby to the possible existence of Shakespeare's lost works. He also meditates on the link between Yale's Skull and Bones Society and the CIA; J.D. Salinger's walled-in house; the Zagat restaurant guide; Borges's efforts to disprove the existence of Time; and a score of other hidden aspects of American culture. Filled with literary allusions, ruminations on the motor of human history and a straightforward sensitivity, Rosenbaum's essays are gems of narrative nonfiction.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 848 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (June 19, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060934468
• ISBN-13: 978-0060934460
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,024,864 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rosenbaum, The Gnostic Explorer, August 7, 2000

By 

R. W. Rasband (Heber City, UT) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Secret Parts of Fortune: Three Decades of Intense Investigations and Edgy Enthusiasms (Hardcover)

Ron Rosenbaum got a lot of attention a couple of years ago with his amazing book "Explaining Hitler", which was about all the different theories people have come up with to account for that figure's almost overwhelming evil. However, he has been writing journalism for thirty years that explores the hidden underside of contemporary culture--the "gnostic knowledge", if you will, of the modern world. This book is a thick, satisfying collection of much of that work. Some of the best stuff: an exploration of Kim Philby and the information about him that Graham Greene might have taken to his death. An amusing expose of the naked "posture photos" that used to be required of every freshman at Ivy League universities. His Hitler essay that first appeared in the "New Yorker" magazine. The inside poop on the secret society of "Skull and Bones." There is also a lot of terrific "literary journalism"--the best essay I've ever read on J.D. Salinger, which first appeared in "Esquire"; along with his famous take on the underappreciated Charles Portis, which got his books back into print. Also, perceptive stuff on Martin Amis and an explanation of how the lost art of the "close reading" of the old-fashioned "New Critics" is better than post-modernism at explaining the world. Rosenbaum is definitely *not* a conspiracy theorist; his real subject is how human beings respond to mystery. He contrasts his own shifting views on the JFK asassination ("Oswald's Ghost") with the fatal paranoia that eventually overcame the late Danny Casolaro. This is an endlessly fascinating book--highly recommended for mystery lovers, history buffs, and fans of the weird and unexplained.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars America's best living essayist, September 5, 2000

By 

Susan Paxton - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Secret Parts of Fortune: Three Decades of Intense Investigations and Edgy Enthusiasms (Hardcover)

I have to confess being unfamiliar with Ron Rosenbaum until reading his excellent, perceptive book "Explaining Hitler." What a pleasure, then, that he has followed that book up with this collection of his magazine work extending over the past three decades. The essays collected here are a mixed bag showing Rosenbaum's extensive range, from amusing short pieces to long works in depth. Some personal favorites include his early exploration of the world of phone phreaks (in which Rosenbaum predicted, correctly, that computer hacking was the wave of the future - this in 1971!), his exposure of the Henry Lee Lucas serial killer hoax, his slightly crazed looks at TV culture via the war over canned laughter and the eminence of Mr. Whipple in toilet paper advertising, a short but incredibly horrible glimpse of early 60s teen film star Troy Donahue debauched and decrepit in the early 70s, his explorations into the world of the Kennedy assassination mythos, a brief, horrified look at Bill Gates' house, and his wonderful exposure of Yale's weird Skull and Bones fraternity. Every piece is well worth your time and several are worthy of close rereading. Rosenbaum is a fine writer, improving continuously as this collection shows (and he started at a very high level), and I'll be looking for his magazine pieces from now on.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Dense, January 11, 2001

By 

N. Hochman (Alexandria, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Secret Parts of Fortune: Three Decades of Intense Investigations and Edgy Enthusiasms (Hardcover)

I had never read Ron Rosenbaum before I purchased this book and while I don't love everything I've read so far, I do have a great deal of respect for Rosenbaum as a journalist. To put it simply: he's brilliant. It's so refreshing to read his work. He's one of the best journalists I've ever read and am so glad that amazon brought him to my attention.

My problem with the book was that many of his essays just didn't grab me. The synopsis described several topics which I was sure would interest me but when I actually read them I found the writing style a bit dense and bogged down. I don't ever expect to like everything I read in collections. I particularly liked "The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal," as well as "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer Hoax." This is the kind of compilation which I would not recommend attempting to read in one sitting. Smaller portions worked best for me. This is a wonderful collection of Rosenbaum's work, and while I haven't read them all yet, so far, so good.