The Rogue

January 2, 2012
In this account of the self-proclaimed rogue of the Republican Party, bestselling journalist McGinniss leaves no stone unturned in his pursuit of Sarah Palin’s true identity, even if it means moving in next door to the former beauty queen and governor of Alaska. Narrator Arthur Morey delivers a steady reading that allows McGinniss’s prose and reporting to take center stage. Morey’s professional tone and polished narration make for a compelling listen as the author charts Palin’s surprising rise to fame and dishes a few insider tidbits about her family. “I could probably fill up most of my fingers with the names of women Todd has screwed,” states a former neighbor. Listeners will find this a slightly skewed but enjoyable account of one woman’s leap into the political spotlight. A Crown hardcover.

December 15, 2011
A bestselling author returns from "Palinland" with colorful stories, none flattering, about its most famous resident. In 2010, to research this book, McGinniss (Never Enough, 2007, etc.) traveled to Alaska and moved in next door to the Palins on Lake Lucille in Wasilla. From this provocative perch he conducted a five-month search for the "real" Sarah Palin, collecting, it seems, every bit of gossip, rumor and innuendo that would expose "this clown in high heels." No connection to scandal is too tenuous (the Palins were family friends of a soldier who pled guilty to the murder of three Afghan civilians), no offense too slight (Sarah once condescended to a physical therapist supporter who offered advice on health care), no flaw too minute (the ghostwriter for Going Rogue misquoted basketball coach John Wooden) for inclusion here. "God's chosen candidate" is foul-mouthed at home and publicly vitriolic. McGinniss' sources supply any number of anecdotes to fill in the portrait of Alaska's youngest and only female governor as paranoid, vindictive, lazy, obsessive, incurious, intolerant and unlettered. Baffled by simple words like "notwithstanding" and "benign," uninterested in the intricacies of policy and devoted far more to celebrity than service, Palin, as office-holder or candidate, has left a "trail of blood in her wake." We learn that her marriage is a fraud and that the "self-proclaimed mama grizzly" can barely be bothered to care for her children, finding them useful only as political props. The kids are out of control, and one of them (the Down syndrome afflicted Trig) may not even be her own. In Going to Extremes (1980), McGinniss wrote wonderfully about Alaska. Here he goes to such extremes, employing a sledgehammer where a scalpel will do, that even confirmed Palin-haters or the two or three Americans who've yet to make up their minds about her will cry, "Hold, enough!" Absolutely no dirt goes unstirred.

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