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Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep State
A wild, humane, and hilarious meditation on post-privacy America--from the acclaimed author of Thrown
Who are you? You are data about data. You are a map of connections--a culmination of everything you have ever posted, searched, emailed, liked, and followed. In this groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction, Kerry Howley investigates the curious implications of living in the age of the indelible. Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs tells the true story of intelligence specialist Reality Winner, a lone young woman who stuffs a state secret under her skirt and trusts the wrong people to help. After printing five pages of dangerous information she was never supposed to see, Winner finds herself at the mercy of forces more invasive than she could have possibly imagined.
Following Winner's unlikely journey from rural Texas to a federal courtroom, Howley maps a hidden world, drawing in John Walker Lindh, Lady Gaga, Edward Snowden, a rescue dog named Outlaw Babyface Nelson, and a mother who will do whatever it takes to get her daughter out of jail. Howley's subjects face a challenge new to history: they are imprisoned by their past selves, trapped for as long as the Internet endures. A soap opera set in the deep state, Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs is a free fall into a world where everything is recorded and nothing is sacred, from a singular writer unafraid to ask essential questions about the strangeness of modern life.
Who are you? You are data about data. You are a map of connections--a culmination of everything you have ever posted, searched, emailed, liked, and followed. In this groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction, Kerry Howley investigates the curious implications of living in the age of the indelible. Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs tells the true story of intelligence specialist Reality Winner, a lone young woman who stuffs a state secret under her skirt and trusts the wrong people to help. After printing five pages of dangerous information she was never supposed to see, Winner finds herself at the mercy of forces more invasive than she could have possibly imagined.
Following Winner's unlikely journey from rural Texas to a federal courtroom, Howley maps a hidden world, drawing in John Walker Lindh, Lady Gaga, Edward Snowden, a rescue dog named Outlaw Babyface Nelson, and a mother who will do whatever it takes to get her daughter out of jail. Howley's subjects face a challenge new to history: they are imprisoned by their past selves, trapped for as long as the Internet endures. A soap opera set in the deep state, Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs is a free fall into a world where everything is recorded and nothing is sacred, from a singular writer unafraid to ask essential questions about the strangeness of modern life.
233 pages, Hardcover
First published March 21, 2023
491 people are currently reading
13371 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 609 reviews
April 1, 2023
Started out strong but then begins to focus in exclusively on Reality Winner’s story. It then stays on that narrative, (which is pretty much a dead end), and leaves the reader feeling like it is unfinished at the ending.
It was still a riveting, quick read that effectively illustrates how the surveillance state is really mostly just comprised of us now that the majority of folks do the work for free by having smartphones, smart tv, and vacuums that know the layout of our homes, and other googaws that demand our privacy as currency for convenience.
It feels almost obligatory to note that the irony that I am posting a review about this book using a smartphone on a social media platform owned by Amazon is not lost on me.
It was still a riveting, quick read that effectively illustrates how the surveillance state is really mostly just comprised of us now that the majority of folks do the work for free by having smartphones, smart tv, and vacuums that know the layout of our homes, and other googaws that demand our privacy as currency for convenience.
It feels almost obligatory to note that the irony that I am posting a review about this book using a smartphone on a social media platform owned by Amazon is not lost on me.
March 24, 2023
This was riveting from start to finish. Potential readers should not let its opaque subject matter or bizarre title deter them (In case you forgot, as I did: it's a meme from 2014 featuring a Christian woman earnestly explaining how Monster energy drinks are a Trojan Horse of Satanism).
This is actually a very wise book about many things: the War on Terror, the Internet, surveillance in all its forms -- and how these factors have converged over the last 20 years to change how we collectively make sense of reality, remember, and are remembered. The people Howley has selected to profile in this book -- John Walker Lindt, John Kiriakou, Reality Winner, and more whose names you may or may not know -- are all fascinating subjects, rendered with precision and authenticity. Like all great narrative nonfiction authors, Howley herself is a measured guide who does not insert herself unnecessarily, and steadfastly avoids deifying or condemning her subjects. I particularly enjoyed reading the interviews with Reality Winner and her family, which make up the second half of the book.
This is actually a very wise book about many things: the War on Terror, the Internet, surveillance in all its forms -- and how these factors have converged over the last 20 years to change how we collectively make sense of reality, remember, and are remembered. The people Howley has selected to profile in this book -- John Walker Lindt, John Kiriakou, Reality Winner, and more whose names you may or may not know -- are all fascinating subjects, rendered with precision and authenticity. Like all great narrative nonfiction authors, Howley herself is a measured guide who does not insert herself unnecessarily, and steadfastly avoids deifying or condemning her subjects. I particularly enjoyed reading the interviews with Reality Winner and her family, which make up the second half of the book.
May 3, 2023
This topic feels especially opaque and I think the author does a good job cutting through that but I also didn’t quite understand the why of this book. It was an interesting expose type book, with very good writing and engaging storytelling, and yet still I felt lost a lot.
April 24, 2023
This book was very good and put me into an extremely bad mood.
May 20, 2023
me, typing into goodreads: now this is JOURNALISM!!!!!
the nsa agent tracking my keystrokes: *nods sagely*
the nsa agent tracking my keystrokes: *nods sagely*
July 19, 2023
The writing in this is really clumsy and desperately self-important, the structure is sort of baffling, but more importantly I'm not really sure who this book is for. If you know enough about state surveillance to be interested in picking this up, there's not really anything new to learn and very little insight to be gleaned from it, and it just doesn't seem like something a casual reader is ever going to pick up and learn from. I hope that the people who do read it make it to the end and understand that what Reality Winner's mother goes through to see her is as bad, if not easier than what an average person trying to visit their loved one in prison suffers and perhaps starts to question the prison system if they haven't already, but otherwise I just do not understand what I was supposed to get here. Also the thread connecting the title to the book is finer than frog hair and comes off as really embarrassing and tone deaf when it comes up in the book. If this were a book about conspiracy theories and QAnon and the evangelical right who have bought into those specious beliefs and made them their bread and butter, sure, but that's barely given a sliver of thought at all.
I'm so utterly confounded by what this book was trying to do that I now no longer trust the person who recommended it to me and I will admit that makes it very special.
I'm so utterly confounded by what this book was trying to do that I now no longer trust the person who recommended it to me and I will admit that makes it very special.
February 28, 2024
I'm fairly big on the NYT Review of Books, in particular their podcast, and found that reading their 10 best books of the year tends to give me a well-rounded view on the literary landscape. Though Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs wasn't the nonfiction pick in which I was most interested, it had the advantage of a great title and being one of the shortest picks. A fine a spot to start on the list as any.
The first half of the book examines, briefly, the idea of surveillance and the massive amount of data accrual that's happened in the past 25 years. For me, this was the best part of the book. I was interested to learn about the literally unreadable amount of data that is acquired and how easily the term "classified" is bandied about. I wish the book had stuck around here a little longer and dove into more of what has made the system what it is.
So, as an audiobook, how does this one fare? Well, I'd say. It's not unlike listening to a long form political podcast with all its attendant tangents and loose connections. In Howley's book, the investigation of the Deep State hangs on the case of Reality Winner, who acts as a cautionary tale for our modern world of surveillance. Winner's story is a fine case study where the wheels skirt off the track of intended justice and safety towards the Kafkaesque.
Even though the scope is massive and tethered to Winner, it never really laid together nicely in my mind. Sure, the facts and stories were interesting in and of themselves, but as a whole I felt something rather essential was lacking. By no means is this a bad book or a bad premise, it's just one I wish had been better fleshed out.
The first half of the book examines, briefly, the idea of surveillance and the massive amount of data accrual that's happened in the past 25 years. For me, this was the best part of the book. I was interested to learn about the literally unreadable amount of data that is acquired and how easily the term "classified" is bandied about. I wish the book had stuck around here a little longer and dove into more of what has made the system what it is.
So, as an audiobook, how does this one fare? Well, I'd say. It's not unlike listening to a long form political podcast with all its attendant tangents and loose connections. In Howley's book, the investigation of the Deep State hangs on the case of Reality Winner, who acts as a cautionary tale for our modern world of surveillance. Winner's story is a fine case study where the wheels skirt off the track of intended justice and safety towards the Kafkaesque.
Even though the scope is massive and tethered to Winner, it never really laid together nicely in my mind. Sure, the facts and stories were interesting in and of themselves, but as a whole I felt something rather essential was lacking. By no means is this a bad book or a bad premise, it's just one I wish had been better fleshed out.
October 29, 2023
There are many other books that get to the disturbing point of government surveillance in a far more linear and easy to follow manner. Perhaps it's Hawley's journalist instincts, but she often inserts herself into the story which makes it all the more jarring when reading about Reality Winner, Chelsea Manning, or Julian Assange (who she has a particular aversion to). These insertions made the book fall flat.
Ultimately, I wouldn't recommend this book. If someone is interested in reading about government surveillance and the "deep state" then I'd recommend reading Shoshana Zuboff's "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism", Jeremy Scahill's "The Assassination Complex", or "Objective Troy" by Scott Shane. These are more professionally written and worth one's time.
Ultimately, I wouldn't recommend this book. If someone is interested in reading about government surveillance and the "deep state" then I'd recommend reading Shoshana Zuboff's "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism", Jeremy Scahill's "The Assassination Complex", or "Objective Troy" by Scott Shane. These are more professionally written and worth one's time.
April 8, 2023
"We kill people based on metadata [former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden] once said. Which is true, and they are often the wrong people."
The U.S. government wants to thank you (other governments too, but the book primarily focuses on the U.S. one). You're doing a great job surveilling yourself. In addition to the myriad ways of active surveillance, the U.S. surveillance apparatus is a gigantic information vacuum that sucks up everything we all put online - including this review and your interaction with it, most likely - because maybe, at some point, they might be interested in it. That's a huge problem for anyone unfortunate enough to end up in the crosshairs of the government, or a representative thereof, for one reason or another.
Possibly the worst part of it all, it's generally not so much about what you say even, it's about who and what you've interacted with (so don't ever lend your phone to anyone, ever!). Hell, that's a framework of connections someone can fill out with assumptions and conclusions, making you into a potential target. Stories spun around data points is power. Metadata kills and imprisons.
The giant surveillance apparatus and all its parts make up the "Deep State" in the title of "Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs." And it's a monster of our own making. It has the stamp of democratic approval, draconian laws and programs created and approved in moments of fear, existential terror, and anger. It's a monster that grows more and more difficult to stuff back into Pandora's box.
Howley does a good job of illustrating the extent and dangers of bulk surveillance. How it makes the word freedom ring hollow, how it's used and abused, how it makes crazy ideas sound not so much of a stretch, and how we're all feeding the beast, laying traps for our future selves and those we love. She also shows how some nutty deep state conspiracy theories are both based on and a good cover for the real deep state.
Freedom may not, indeed, be free, but it sure as hell is dying at the hands of its self-proclaimed "protectors."
A book with a few flaws, but well worth your time.
Recommended.
The U.S. government wants to thank you (other governments too, but the book primarily focuses on the U.S. one). You're doing a great job surveilling yourself. In addition to the myriad ways of active surveillance, the U.S. surveillance apparatus is a gigantic information vacuum that sucks up everything we all put online - including this review and your interaction with it, most likely - because maybe, at some point, they might be interested in it. That's a huge problem for anyone unfortunate enough to end up in the crosshairs of the government, or a representative thereof, for one reason or another.
Possibly the worst part of it all, it's generally not so much about what you say even, it's about who and what you've interacted with (so don't ever lend your phone to anyone, ever!). Hell, that's a framework of connections someone can fill out with assumptions and conclusions, making you into a potential target. Stories spun around data points is power. Metadata kills and imprisons.
The giant surveillance apparatus and all its parts make up the "Deep State" in the title of "Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs." And it's a monster of our own making. It has the stamp of democratic approval, draconian laws and programs created and approved in moments of fear, existential terror, and anger. It's a monster that grows more and more difficult to stuff back into Pandora's box.
Howley does a good job of illustrating the extent and dangers of bulk surveillance. How it makes the word freedom ring hollow, how it's used and abused, how it makes crazy ideas sound not so much of a stretch, and how we're all feeding the beast, laying traps for our future selves and those we love. She also shows how some nutty deep state conspiracy theories are both based on and a good cover for the real deep state.
Freedom may not, indeed, be free, but it sure as hell is dying at the hands of its self-proclaimed "protectors."
A book with a few flaws, but well worth your time.
Recommended.
April 15, 2023
Overwritten and under reported. An elaborate clip job by an author entirely too impressed with the sound of her own voice.
March 29, 2023
Surveillance is made of dogs. And state power is made of stories.
This author is a master of insightful juxtaposition, weaving together the landscape of idiosyncratic whistleblower stories, linked by armchair diagnosis but also by common levers of state power. Just as John Walker Lindh suffered from an all-too-American conflation of complex geopolitics, so too did the government weave ideosyncratic data points into a smear campaign of Reality Winner as a terrorist sympathizer. It's always the whistleblowers whose jokes (Reality Winner's stray text about burning down the White House), fantasies (Daniel Hale's late night comments about journalists getting laid), and personal failings (Julian Assange's egotism manifesting as interpersonal misogyny) that get dragged through court and laid out in dry, damning ink. By contrast, Petraeus gifting secrets to his mistress is quiet news, and leaking a strategic mode of communication in Washington. Whistleblowers' personal lives become examined under a microscope, all while the government laces an ocean of data into a clean story distallable in anti-insider threat workshops. The linguist trained by the government to surveil becomes a traitor biding her time. The whistleblower the government trained to kill can be portrayed as playing a long con. At points the book fails to adequately plumb the depths of the deep state's story - of particular note are omissions around the full circumstances surrounding Assange's escapade in Sweden. But in general the book does an excellent job in connecting the ocean of data points available to the government to the narrative power of interpretation. Our data tells intimate stories, and many stories are made possible by that data.
Whistleblowers feel the pain of that interpretation acutely, and I appreciate the connection of that smear campaign to the War on Terror logic undergirding the torture program. Whistleblowers are never uncomplicated, and neither are suspected terrorists. The data is only as good as the input and interpretation - and through that input and intepretation is made real. Is the fuzzy person in drone footage the suspected Al Qaeda member, or did he lend his mom his SIM card? Is Chelsea Manning a traitor, or a prisoner of conscience? Data promises to disambiguate, yet backed with state power becomes a game of narrative.
This book is unique in that it weighs in less on the substance of whistleblower disclosures than on how surveillance is made of us, and how the stories we using that data and about it matter.
This author is a master of insightful juxtaposition, weaving together the landscape of idiosyncratic whistleblower stories, linked by armchair diagnosis but also by common levers of state power. Just as John Walker Lindh suffered from an all-too-American conflation of complex geopolitics, so too did the government weave ideosyncratic data points into a smear campaign of Reality Winner as a terrorist sympathizer. It's always the whistleblowers whose jokes (Reality Winner's stray text about burning down the White House), fantasies (Daniel Hale's late night comments about journalists getting laid), and personal failings (Julian Assange's egotism manifesting as interpersonal misogyny) that get dragged through court and laid out in dry, damning ink. By contrast, Petraeus gifting secrets to his mistress is quiet news, and leaking a strategic mode of communication in Washington. Whistleblowers' personal lives become examined under a microscope, all while the government laces an ocean of data into a clean story distallable in anti-insider threat workshops. The linguist trained by the government to surveil becomes a traitor biding her time. The whistleblower the government trained to kill can be portrayed as playing a long con. At points the book fails to adequately plumb the depths of the deep state's story - of particular note are omissions around the full circumstances surrounding Assange's escapade in Sweden. But in general the book does an excellent job in connecting the ocean of data points available to the government to the narrative power of interpretation. Our data tells intimate stories, and many stories are made possible by that data.
Whistleblowers feel the pain of that interpretation acutely, and I appreciate the connection of that smear campaign to the War on Terror logic undergirding the torture program. Whistleblowers are never uncomplicated, and neither are suspected terrorists. The data is only as good as the input and interpretation - and through that input and intepretation is made real. Is the fuzzy person in drone footage the suspected Al Qaeda member, or did he lend his mom his SIM card? Is Chelsea Manning a traitor, or a prisoner of conscience? Data promises to disambiguate, yet backed with state power becomes a game of narrative.
This book is unique in that it weighs in less on the substance of whistleblower disclosures than on how surveillance is made of us, and how the stories we using that data and about it matter.
April 10, 2023
Did NOT know what I was getting into when I picked this one up. In fact, the title is as covert as the stories within!
This was far from “hilarious� which is an odd word used in the description, but it is interesting that I finished the book a day before yet another historic trove of leaked Pentagon documents were revealed and put the US, yet again, in a compromising and shaky situation with allies and assets.
This book is well written, brutally vivid at times, and an eye-opening look into the confusing world of national secrets. I found myself continually conflicted as I learned details about various cases between whistleblowers, who made choices to reveal secrets about national security, and those who punished actions with no mercy. This book confirms one thing we already know - there is no such thing as privacy in the digital age.
This was far from “hilarious� which is an odd word used in the description, but it is interesting that I finished the book a day before yet another historic trove of leaked Pentagon documents were revealed and put the US, yet again, in a compromising and shaky situation with allies and assets.
This book is well written, brutally vivid at times, and an eye-opening look into the confusing world of national secrets. I found myself continually conflicted as I learned details about various cases between whistleblowers, who made choices to reveal secrets about national security, and those who punished actions with no mercy. This book confirms one thing we already know - there is no such thing as privacy in the digital age.
March 31, 2023
It was good when the author wasn't waxing philosophical. I also don't understand the beef she has with Julian Assange, who has done more than any other whistleblower to expose the crimes of the U.S; or why she felt the need to defend the perpetrators of the "Collateral Murder" video
October 9, 2023
The Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ description describes this book as “hilariousâ€� within the first words, so I kind of I went into reading it thinking it was going to maybe mock conspiracy theorists (like, some Pizzagate type people). But, uh…no. (Although Pizzagate was discussed!) It was like a for real look at the Deep State. I guess?
As individual stories, they were all interesting and compelling. But I kept trying to figure out, like, what was the point of the book? Was she defending Julian Assange and Edward Snowden and, especially, Reality Winner, who is the most prominent person in the book? Maybe? That’s fine with me, but I’m not sure what she’s really saying, overall. Felt kind of vague and pointless, which is not an endorsement for a book like this.
That said, definitely a bunch of good little tidbits of stuff that we all know is happening (“Can/Does the NSA monitor my Google searches?� “Is the US torturing people?�) that when piled all together in a short book will have you thinking WTFuck?
As individual stories, they were all interesting and compelling. But I kept trying to figure out, like, what was the point of the book? Was she defending Julian Assange and Edward Snowden and, especially, Reality Winner, who is the most prominent person in the book? Maybe? That’s fine with me, but I’m not sure what she’s really saying, overall. Felt kind of vague and pointless, which is not an endorsement for a book like this.
That said, definitely a bunch of good little tidbits of stuff that we all know is happening (“Can/Does the NSA monitor my Google searches?� “Is the US torturing people?�) that when piled all together in a short book will have you thinking WTFuck?
February 28, 2024
don’t text me, don’t DM me, don’t call me, don’t email me! if you want to get ahold of me, please send me an encrypted note with no return address. or you can come find me in my new remote home in the woods! hi to the NSA agent reading this review
October 3, 2023
There were a lot of storylines that she jumped back and forth from which made the story feel disjointed. A lot of the storylines felt mostly irrelevant and weren't really wrapped up at the end. Also, she adds herself to the story as a first person narrator in the first chapter but then almost completely disappears from the story after that which I thought was an odd and distracting choice. But her descriptions of the atrocities committed by the deep state of the US government and the callous attitude towards these atrocities were unflinching and powerful.
Her goal was to deliver a gripping and powerful expose of surveillance culture and she did so effectively. I certainly did not leave this book feeling more hopeful about the US military and the NSA then when I started which I think was the goal.
Her goal was to deliver a gripping and powerful expose of surveillance culture and she did so effectively. I certainly did not leave this book feeling more hopeful about the US military and the NSA then when I started which I think was the goal.
January 24, 2024
I am really not sure what Howley was trying to do here? The title is a direct reference to a 2014 video (which I used to be able to quote in its entirety) where a woman links the iconography of monster energy to a secret Satanist agenda. So naturally it seems like this book should be about how these unhinged conspiracy theories form and are disseminated. The description calls it “hilarious,� but I found a sort of cold journalistic tone. The book turns out to be about whistleblowers, which is also interesting, but it’s all sort of cobbled together chaotically. If the book is going to be about Reality Winner, why not just say that? I’m really hung up on the title, why grab an entire line from a proto-QAnon conspiracy and then discuss whistleblowers? I never felt like Howley was revealing a “hidden world,� I felt like she was buying in to deep state theories herself.
March 20, 2024
genuinely very informative and also paranoia-inducing! i was Very Young when 9/11 happened so while my knowledge of the events and the consequences is sound, i didn't get to experience the public response, and i appreciated the attention given to how that event has so gravely impacted the now, not just in our "strict" political systems but in the everyday in ways we can't see. i actually enjoyed following just a handful of stories (joe biggs.......now that was a fascinating journey) but i do wish there were some more tidbit moments because the actual "bottoms up and the devil laughs" event chapter really sung. one the one hand i wish i got more of a sense of the now and the """post-trump""" era, but also we are nowhere near post-trump and i've maintained that trying to address it wholly in literature is a little bit impossible right now when we can't see the other side and democracy is doomed etc etc. but i feel like howley gave me a lot of pieces to grasp it better as well, and i'm glad she didn't make that futile attempt.
ultimately, it was effective. i am sitting here typing this thinking about how someone is watching my keystrokes and can use everything i've said about this book at any given time against me if they created the right narrative and i ended up in the wrong circumstances, and i am paranoid, which means it worked.
ultimately, it was effective. i am sitting here typing this thinking about how someone is watching my keystrokes and can use everything i've said about this book at any given time against me if they created the right narrative and i ended up in the wrong circumstances, and i am paranoid, which means it worked.
July 22, 2024
3.5 stars. I found this interesting and very disturbing. Rating dropped because you definitely need to have a baseline understanding of WikiLeaks, Swowden, etc.
January 16, 2024
This was really interesting but often really disjointed. Reality Winner is fascinating, but I felt as though there were several other points being made that disrupted the story telling at the expense of each contention. Even the title seems out of place for the subject matter.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would totally recommend it for a fascinating read chock full of shocking facts about how we store data, how both sides of the aisle manipulate the internet, and how our prison system treats the people they believe know data that are not sharing it. Basically, it’s a crazy book that’s a little messy but really intriguing. 4.5/5.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would totally recommend it for a fascinating read chock full of shocking facts about how we store data, how both sides of the aisle manipulate the internet, and how our prison system treats the people they believe know data that are not sharing it. Basically, it’s a crazy book that’s a little messy but really intriguing. 4.5/5.
Want to read
April 1, 2024A NY Times Notable Book. And Jennifer Szalai's review is pretty convincing:
Excerpt:
"At the center of this book is Reality Winner (“her real name, let’s move past it now�) ....
A note Winner had made about wanting to “burn the White House down� was taken as proof of malevolent intent, omitting the “ha, ha� that followed it. (Winner later wondered if she would have fared better with an “lol jk.�) She was sentenced to 63 months � “the longest sentence ever handed down for an Espionage Act conviction.� ....
“There’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it,� Marjorie Taylor Greene, now a congresswoman from Georgia, said in 2017. How’s that for the banality of evil?�
Also in the book's favor: it's short!
Excerpt:
"At the center of this book is Reality Winner (“her real name, let’s move past it now�) ....
A note Winner had made about wanting to “burn the White House down� was taken as proof of malevolent intent, omitting the “ha, ha� that followed it. (Winner later wondered if she would have fared better with an “lol jk.�) She was sentenced to 63 months � “the longest sentence ever handed down for an Espionage Act conviction.� ....
“There’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it,� Marjorie Taylor Greene, now a congresswoman from Georgia, said in 2017. How’s that for the banality of evil?�
Also in the book's favor: it's short!
March 25, 2023
it feels counter to the book for me to be so excited to blast my thoughts about it into the ether but� i loved this! it is a real feat to make such a sprawling story feel so incisive. and to make me laugh out loud during such a heartbreaking story. (and if the CIA agent inside my phone is reading this, i recommend the book to you!)
November 19, 2023
This true story read like high Pynchon. Brilliant, wild, good fun. Compelling and incisive.
December 16, 2023
Incoherent, could not finish.
Read
May 30, 2024I watched Laura Poitras's CitizenFour when it came out; it shows Snowden holed up in the hotel room in Hong Kong talking to Poitras and Glen Greenwald before he flees to Russia. I read and enjoyed Dark Mirror, about Snowden and other secret leaks, I'm a big fan of Trevor Paglen's photos of the surveillance state (satellites, undersea cables, etc.), and I even watched the pretty bad The Fifth Estate where Benedict Cumberbatch plays Julian Assange. This is a more lyrical, human take on the security state and the way it ensnares people, less techno thriller and more tragicomedy of errors.
November 7, 2023
is a series of compelling narratives that is very entertaining, informative, and enlightening, as well as (more than occasionally) terrifying.
manages to jump right into the stories behind Julian Assange and Reality Winner and make them understandable. I will admit for the first 50 pages or so, I felt a bit as if I had stepped into a fever dream of MSNBC segments, Fox prevarications, and a college dorm roomie who NEEDS to convey the latest conspiracy theories she now truly believes.
The story of Reality Winner and her family--particularly the underestimated-at-your-peril Billie Winner-Davis-- is well worth the time to read this book and better understand how pervasive and insidious America's acceptance of a security state to have access to our little mobile phones has become.
manages to jump right into the stories behind Julian Assange and Reality Winner and make them understandable. I will admit for the first 50 pages or so, I felt a bit as if I had stepped into a fever dream of MSNBC segments, Fox prevarications, and a college dorm roomie who NEEDS to convey the latest conspiracy theories she now truly believes.
The story of Reality Winner and her family--particularly the underestimated-at-your-peril Billie Winner-Davis-- is well worth the time to read this book and better understand how pervasive and insidious America's acceptance of a security state to have access to our little mobile phones has become.
February 21, 2025
Ok, this was a scary book to read. 1984 wasn’t so far off� also the last sentence really got me. Wasn’t expecting to tear up, but wow did I.
April 16, 2023
The first half of the book has permanently raised the standards of writing for me. It was that good. Writing I thought was fantastic just a few days ago is now *meh*. Howley’s prose could make a book on the history of lettuce a delicious treat. She writes with the easygoing flow of a loquacious friend after a few drinks - except this friend is packed with stories about government secrets. However, the flow of the narrative is carefully crafted to keep you munching on the story way past your bedtime.
While many journalists today are happy to exploit good storytelling skills in order to sell satisfying tales of righteousness versus evil, Howley revels in ambiguity and ethical complexity. It’s a rare skill, particularly recently, to be able to fairly communicate the differing perspectives in a story � usually one side is favored by the author and subconsciously bends reality to roll into their team’s grooves. But Howley likes to take the reader on a more dizzying ride in which you think you see things clearly and begin to root for someone only for a shift in framing to blur that line you were just beginning to see clearly. For instance, (after going many years without thinking about it) I got fired up again about the horrifying video Chelsea Manning leaked where the helicopter fired on civilians with cameras. But Howley isn’t going to let the reader bask in such self-assurance; she tells of the more complicated truth left out of the story Assange showed.
Then we get to the second half, and she decides to do the exact opposite of everything that made the first half so great. After building the importance of Reality Winner’s story up, she inexplicably bails on dissecting the veracity of the information she leaked (which seemed like the most relevant aspect of this story) and obsesses over the mistakes a news outlet, The Intercept, made that contributed to Winner’s identity being discovered. But gone are those complicated narratives of the first half and in its place is the simplistic tribal narrative. The journalist Will Storr writes that we can tell that our story has become a self-serving delusion when “all the good is on our side and all the bad on theirs, our storytelling brain is working its grim magic in full. We're being sold a story. Reality is rarely so simple…But thinking with tribal stories means shutting out such morally unsatisfying complexity. Our storytelling brains transform reality's chaos into a simple narrative of cause and effect that reassures us that our biased models, and the instincts and emotions they generate, are virtuous and right. And this means casting the opposing tribe into the role of villain.�
To Howley, the villain is clearly The Intercept, and particularly one of its founders, Glenn Greenwald.
I hadn’t heard much about him or The Intercept’s involvement with Winner (or hardly anything about any of them) until reading this, but Howley’s version screamed personal animosity. I dug around the Google a bit after reading this and still can’t make sense of her fixation on this. Yes, an editor (not even the journalist she focuses on) made a bad call by letting a source at the NSA see the document when verifying its authenticity (which they had to authenticate in some way since Winner didn’t reach out to any journalists like whistleblowers typically do).
But that mistake is not worth it taking up almost half the book. It hardly warrants a paragraph. Wouldn’t that space have been better devoted to investigating the actual allegations made in the document that was leaked? Instead, Howley makes bizarre arguments such as saying Winner wasn’t all that interested in Russia when she leaked the document, so how could it be politically motivated? But I don’t think any of those critical of the verity of the document’s claims believe Winner either created it or decided to leak it because she wanted to paint him as a Russian asset; but that she was naive and grabbed a document that angered her without even first checking to see if there was any truth to the claim. Just because a classified document alleges something doesn’t in any way make that allegation true � in fact, given the intelligence agencies’s track records, anyone more experienced than Winner would tell you that it’s about as trustworthy as the tabloids in the checkout line. Howley has spent a career examining national security mistakes and corruption. For her not to be at the very least sympathetic to skepticism of unverified intelligence just shows how much she completely lost the thread of the story and became pulled into the grip of a good ol fashioned story of my righteous side versus your evil side. At this point, she turned from the tipsy friend telling awesome stories to your drunk friend that won’t shut up about their ex.
While many journalists today are happy to exploit good storytelling skills in order to sell satisfying tales of righteousness versus evil, Howley revels in ambiguity and ethical complexity. It’s a rare skill, particularly recently, to be able to fairly communicate the differing perspectives in a story � usually one side is favored by the author and subconsciously bends reality to roll into their team’s grooves. But Howley likes to take the reader on a more dizzying ride in which you think you see things clearly and begin to root for someone only for a shift in framing to blur that line you were just beginning to see clearly. For instance, (after going many years without thinking about it) I got fired up again about the horrifying video Chelsea Manning leaked where the helicopter fired on civilians with cameras. But Howley isn’t going to let the reader bask in such self-assurance; she tells of the more complicated truth left out of the story Assange showed.
Then we get to the second half, and she decides to do the exact opposite of everything that made the first half so great. After building the importance of Reality Winner’s story up, she inexplicably bails on dissecting the veracity of the information she leaked (which seemed like the most relevant aspect of this story) and obsesses over the mistakes a news outlet, The Intercept, made that contributed to Winner’s identity being discovered. But gone are those complicated narratives of the first half and in its place is the simplistic tribal narrative. The journalist Will Storr writes that we can tell that our story has become a self-serving delusion when “all the good is on our side and all the bad on theirs, our storytelling brain is working its grim magic in full. We're being sold a story. Reality is rarely so simple…But thinking with tribal stories means shutting out such morally unsatisfying complexity. Our storytelling brains transform reality's chaos into a simple narrative of cause and effect that reassures us that our biased models, and the instincts and emotions they generate, are virtuous and right. And this means casting the opposing tribe into the role of villain.�
To Howley, the villain is clearly The Intercept, and particularly one of its founders, Glenn Greenwald.
I hadn’t heard much about him or The Intercept’s involvement with Winner (or hardly anything about any of them) until reading this, but Howley’s version screamed personal animosity. I dug around the Google a bit after reading this and still can’t make sense of her fixation on this. Yes, an editor (not even the journalist she focuses on) made a bad call by letting a source at the NSA see the document when verifying its authenticity (which they had to authenticate in some way since Winner didn’t reach out to any journalists like whistleblowers typically do).
But that mistake is not worth it taking up almost half the book. It hardly warrants a paragraph. Wouldn’t that space have been better devoted to investigating the actual allegations made in the document that was leaked? Instead, Howley makes bizarre arguments such as saying Winner wasn’t all that interested in Russia when she leaked the document, so how could it be politically motivated? But I don’t think any of those critical of the verity of the document’s claims believe Winner either created it or decided to leak it because she wanted to paint him as a Russian asset; but that she was naive and grabbed a document that angered her without even first checking to see if there was any truth to the claim. Just because a classified document alleges something doesn’t in any way make that allegation true � in fact, given the intelligence agencies’s track records, anyone more experienced than Winner would tell you that it’s about as trustworthy as the tabloids in the checkout line. Howley has spent a career examining national security mistakes and corruption. For her not to be at the very least sympathetic to skepticism of unverified intelligence just shows how much she completely lost the thread of the story and became pulled into the grip of a good ol fashioned story of my righteous side versus your evil side. At this point, she turned from the tipsy friend telling awesome stories to your drunk friend that won’t shut up about their ex.
January 24, 2024
I'm blowing hot and cold on this one. Kerry Howley is an abundantly gifted writer, indefatigable interviewer, and diligent researcher. I just wish we knew more about how she knows....there's a list in the back pages of works-consulted, but she eschews footnotes, which I felt a distinctive need of, especially in places where I think she may be getting important points of a story wrong.
That said, her central story of Reality Winner (if you didn't know is, yes, a real name, bestowed upon her by her father) is at once heartbreaking and disturbing. The peculiarly titled book is essentially a saga of whistleblowers--think John Kiriakou, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Reality Winner--their helpmates--e.g., Julian Assange, The Intercept magazine--and their particular fates. As a long, lively, complexly layered, largely undocumented stitching together of related deep-state narratives, I found Howley's story, and particularly the Winner saga and Reality's surreal day in court, both gripping and told with a sense of ironic amusement. Consider a comparison of how the system worked for( David Petreaeus, a four-star Army General who served as CIA Director from September 6, 2011 until his resignation on November 9, 2012 and who spilled myriad classified materials to his then paramour Paula Broadwell for inclusion in her book, All In: The Education of David Petraeus, and who walked away unscathed, and that of Reality Winner, who "leaked" an NSA document that concluded what was already known to all, that Russian hackers were all over the 2016 election: Winner wound up with the longest sentence of any American ever tried under the Espionage Act. (Did the case presented by the US government have anything to do with the then-President, who sided with Vlad Putin's denial of Russian hacking, over the judgment of the US Intelligence Community)
So yes, read it, it's a slender little book, laugh a little, weep a little, and fend off your frustration at the lack of sourcing. It's a worthy trip.
That said, her central story of Reality Winner (if you didn't know is, yes, a real name, bestowed upon her by her father) is at once heartbreaking and disturbing. The peculiarly titled book is essentially a saga of whistleblowers--think John Kiriakou, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Reality Winner--their helpmates--e.g., Julian Assange, The Intercept magazine--and their particular fates. As a long, lively, complexly layered, largely undocumented stitching together of related deep-state narratives, I found Howley's story, and particularly the Winner saga and Reality's surreal day in court, both gripping and told with a sense of ironic amusement. Consider a comparison of how the system worked for( David Petreaeus, a four-star Army General who served as CIA Director from September 6, 2011 until his resignation on November 9, 2012 and who spilled myriad classified materials to his then paramour Paula Broadwell for inclusion in her book, All In: The Education of David Petraeus, and who walked away unscathed, and that of Reality Winner, who "leaked" an NSA document that concluded what was already known to all, that Russian hackers were all over the 2016 election: Winner wound up with the longest sentence of any American ever tried under the Espionage Act. (Did the case presented by the US government have anything to do with the then-President, who sided with Vlad Putin's denial of Russian hacking, over the judgment of the US Intelligence Community)
So yes, read it, it's a slender little book, laugh a little, weep a little, and fend off your frustration at the lack of sourcing. It's a worthy trip.
March 23, 2025
It was alright. Got tired of the author’s voice by the end, sorry
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