Not to be too reductive, but Douglas Rogers is from Zimbabwe and he's white. His parents are the owners of a backpacker lodge popular with tourists and found themselves swept up in Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's plans to reclaim white-owned land. He returned and saw the chaos that ensued. As his synopsis puts it:

On returning to the country of his birth, Douglas finds his once orderly and progressive home transformed into something resembling a Marx Brothers romp crossed with Heart of Darkness: Pot has supplanted maize in the fields; hookers have replaced college kids as guests; and soldiers, spies, and teenage diamond dealers guzzle beer at the bar. Beyond the farm gates, meanwhile, rogue politicians, witch doctors, and armed war veterans loyal to President Mugabe circle like hungry lions.

Douglas currently lives in Brooklyn and writes regularly for Travel & Leisure, the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian, and once attempted to explain cricket to me over beers. Damian, who also lives in Brooklyn, has the novels Stretch 29 and The Chancers and the BBC comedy series Massive.

from The Last Resort...

And we ate like kings. There was more than marijuana growing in those former flower beds. I discovered now why my parents looked so healthy. There was a famine looming in Zimbabwe in early 2005, but if you could eat avocados you'd never go hungry in this neck of the woods. Every few days, scores of young black traders would make their way down from the orchards in the surrounding mountain valleys with huge burlap sacks filled with bananas, oranges, lemons, pawpaws, mangos, and avocados.

Mostly avocados: smooth green oval- shaped gems the size of baseballs. The traders would wait at the bottom of Christmas Pass for transport to Harare, 180 miles to the west, where they hoped to sell the fruit at market, but there was no fuel, and the buses weren't running. Instead, they'd just sit for days, sleeping by the roadside, while their crop rotted away in the sun. My father was outraged with this state of affairs. These were innovative, hardworking young entrepreneurs, trying to make a living. People were starving in Zimbabwe, yet here mountains of food rotted away. The state couldn't even get buses to work. My parents had already begun growing most of their own vegetables, but now they started buying what they didn't grow from these informal traders, and it helped account for their excellent health. They ate fruit salads every morning, drank fresh- squeezed lemonade during the day instead of Coke or cordials, and cooked elaborate meals at night from recipes they got watching the Naked Chef, Nigella Lawson, and Anthony Bourdain on their new satellite TV.

I told them I never ate half so well back in Brooklyn, and we decided one night they needed a Food Network show of their own, with a cookbook tie- in. We came up with a title. It would be called Recipes for Disaster: Adventures in the Kitchen of a Failed State. In it they would be filmed buying produce from those informal traders on the road, asking them about their lives, how they got those heavy bags down the mountain. Did they own the orchards or steal the fruit? My parents would also have to be filmed buying food from the new farmers in the valley who were trying to make a go of it. "Oh, Christ," said Mom. "Will I have to jump up and down chanting ZANU- PF slogans in exchange for a maize cob?"
My father loved the idea.

"Yes, Rosalind, I can see you doing that. And just think of the appeal to a Western audience: ethnic dancing and an organic maize cob. These buggers have no fertilizer."

Another episode, we decided, would be dedicated to the miracle of Zimbabwean cheese. My father had discovered that due to a shortage of one vital ingredient (or perhaps the loss of skilled staff), the usually tasteless Gouda that the state Dairy Marketing Board manufactured had now turned into a delectably rich and creamy Brie- as tasty as anything you might find in Provence. He bought several wheels of it at a time at the DMB ware house in Mutare, worried that they might discover and correct their mistake and it would go back to tasting awful. Finally, we decided that each episode would show them cooking up some masterpiece on that gas stove by candlelight on the kitchen floor during a power outage.

"We need more atmosphere," I told them. "A sense of place."

"I know," said my mother, warming to the theme. "We could fire up the generator and eat each meal in front of the TV, watching a speech by Mugabe ranting about us ‘white imperialist running dogs of capitalism,' or the ‘homosexual government of Tony Blair.'"

We burst out laughing.

"You know what?" Dad guffawed. "It could work. I reckon that Anthony Bourdain chap would come out here and present it. He goes to some really wacky places." My mom's eyes lit up at the thought of the dashing Kitchen Confidential star coming out to visit them.

You can find more information on The Last Resort, on Douglas' site, including where to buy it. If you're an author or a book publicist and you want to participate in the Gawker Book Club, send me an email.

Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was "blindsided" by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush's re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.

Come on, Tom. Michael Brown was just a symptom of an administration too concerned with exaggerated foreign threats to give a shit about domestic emergency preparedness and too opposed to career civil service to staff FEMA with people who knew what they were doing. He was not actually personally responsible for Katrina, and unless Tom's claiming that Brown's presence alone was the reason why Ridge, as head of the department in charge of FEMA, never bothered to make emergency response a departmental priority that "revelation" is just long-after-the-fact ass-covering.

Oh, but the other thing, about changing the terror alert right before the 2004 election? We believe that one.

It's $5 million less than Bill Clinton's advance for My Life, $1 million less than Hillary Clinton got for Living History, and $2 million less than the advance for the memoirs of Tony Friggin' Blair, the British prime minister who answered to some queen, and to George W. Bush. BURN.

[Page Six]

Today Condoleezza Rice signed a three-book deal worth $2.5 million. Okay, maybe a bit more than you want to hear from Condi, but she was Secretary of State and all that, and presumably saw George Bush drunk and naked dozens of times, so she could conceivably sell a few books.

Earlier this month, Diane Keaton got a book deal reported to be worth more than $2 million. Does she have that many fans, really? I don't know, I doubt it, but maybe, who knows? She was in some good movies!

But this?

The comedian Kathy Griffin is writing a memoir, and according to three sources with knowledge of the deal, her literary agent at Endeavor, former Dutton editor-in-chief Trena Keating, sold it at auction last week to an editor at Random House's Ballantine imprint for more than $2 million.

Unless this is titled "Knocking the Dicks Out of My Mouth: 100 Celebrities I Have Slept With Who Would Do Anything For That Fact to Remain Secret," by Kathy Griffin, we fear that the book industry may be losing its grip on reality. [NYO]

Jobs became a jealous guard of his own privacy after Time reported in 1983 that he denied being the father of his daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs. He later acknowledged her, but he has since become famous for being uncooperative with writers and publishers. After Wiley came out with an unauthorized biography, iCon: Steve Jobs, Jobs had the computer-book publisher's wares removed from the shelves at every Apple Store. (And that was for a book subtitled The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business, mind you.)

Amazon.com has more than 7,000 search results for "Steve Jobs." Yet he has never written a book himself. (The closest he came was a foreword for To Infinity and Beyond!, a history of Jobs's Pixar studio.)

An autobiography, entirely in his own words, would be the perfect medium for this famous control freak. And publishers have been eager for a Jobs memoir for years. When Dan Lyons shopped a book based on his Fake Steve Jobs blog, many publishers rejected him because they feared that putting out Lyons's book would get them blackballed from the bidding for the real Jobs autobiography, if and when he chooses to write one.

There's no time like the present. Jobs has faced his own mortality since 2003, when he learned he had pancreatic cancer. He's officially on medical leave from Apple through June, citing "complex" health problems. It's hard to see an obsessive workaholic like Jobs taking bedrest, though. Why not pass the time writing a memoir?

Keith Kelly reports today that Laura got $1.6 million, which is not only a mere one-fifth of what Hillary got, it's even less than Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush got. And they were way back in the day, remember!

We attribute this to the fact that everyone knows this book will suck big balls and the only people you can expect to read it all the way through are fundamentalist Christian Republican Texas knitting circle members. Among normal people, now is when they desperately start revealing the dirty laundry of every marginally famous person they know in an attempt to land a few seconds of airtime on ET or something, so Laura, hey, it's never too late for that. [NYP]

Well, just last week a bunch of publishing hot shots told the New Yorker that the book is unlikely to reveal anything good. Laura lived up to her robotic image in personal meetings:

“We questioned her rigorously, but it was one-word answers. I considered it the worst, or the most frustrating, meeting of its sort that I’ve ever had.” He added, “But she really couldn’t have been nicer.”

We're calling it right now: this book will be the most boring first lady memoir ever. It will be full of sickly sweet platitudes, okay? Although millions of Americans will surely pay $29.95 to hear the inside scoop on this:

The President, Mrs. Bush, Barbara, and Jenna are deeply saddened by the passing of their cat India (“Willie”)...India [was also] affectionately called “Kitty” by the family.

Why so many pseudonyms?

Problems with the narrative media-arc in the wake of her deal: she's getting a divorce. She drank some wine, which she isn't allowed to do in recovery. A judge ruled that she "can't be alone with her child" or whatever. Still, Star reports, Simon & Schuster will solider on with the book deal. (The industry is at a bit of a low point right now, so they can't afford to be picky after spending that much.)

The current wait-time from moving out of the White House to publishing a book appears to be about two years. Taking into consideration the time it takes to write (or ghostwrite) a book and put it through the slow publishing process suggests that most presidents have gotten their book deals right after leaving office. Here's what past unpopular presidents did with their memoirs:

• Jimmy Carter: left office in 1981; Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President was published in 1982. The New York Times verdict? "Dry and passionless." Post-presidency, Carter wrote twenty-four books, including a poetry collection and a historical novel. He also wrote a children's book that his daughter illustrated, called The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer.
• Gerald Ford: Out of office in '77, he published his autobiography, A Time to Heal, in 1979. Review from Foreign Policy: "This is the shortest and most honest of recent presidential memoirs, but there are no surprises, no deep probings of motives or events. No more here than meets the eye".
• Lyndon B. Johnson, who didn't run for re-election in 1968 after Vietnam overwhelmed his presidency, published his memoirs, The Vantage Point, in 1971. Everyone still blames him for fucking up that war.
• Harry Truman was roundly disliked when he left office in 1953. Nevertheless, his two-book memoirs were published in 1955 and 1956. The New York Times Book Review called the first one a "volume of distinction"!
• Herbert Hoover, the unpopular Depression-era president for whom the "Hooverville" homeless encampments were named after, left office in 1933. He published The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover in 1952. Wrote the Times that year, "There is no doubt that Mr. Hoover always has had a case in defense of his ill-starred administration; but when he comes to make it it turns out too good a one. This is the third — and we hope not the final — volume of a fascinating series of memoirs."
• 
  
  

Some celebrity-penned tomes seem like they might actually contain worthwhile information: Celebrity Detox by Rosie O'Donnell, for instance, or How I Play Golf by Tiger Woods. But what about Naomi Campbell's Naomi? Victoria Beckham's That Extra Half An Inch? Or Tori Spelling's unfortunately titled sTORI Telling?

Kelly Osbourne and Miley Cyrus have definitely had life experiences that are not "average," but is there enough to fill a book? And who will buy their stories? (And who will ghostwrite???)

While I don't have any celebrity autobiographies (well, someone did give me Raising Kanye, by Donda West), I asked around and Megan owns Gracie by George Burns. Megan and Jessica both own Me, by Katherine Hepburn. Jessica says: "Also I read Drew Barrymore's sex and drug addled teen memoir when I was at camp in 1995. It was totally passed around like contraband." Maria used to have Beauty Inside And Out, by Tyra. Margaret admits: "I own Having It All by Erika Kane. Note this is not a book about Susan Lucci, but a celebrity autobiography written by the fictional character she plays on All My Children. I don't want to discuss why I own this. The shame runs too deep." Fess up: Do you own (or have you read) celebrity memoirs?

Why Are So Many New Memoirs 'Inspirational'? [Guardian]

The steps the newspaper took:

• "Her true identity and that of Paul were revealed to The New York Times so that the newspaper could confirm the outlines of her case." They also had her show her passport upon meeting the reporter.
• "The Times reviewed police reports, confirmed biographical information about Ms. Brennan and Paul on the Internet and spoke by telephone to the former detective who handled Ms. Brennan’s case.
• With Brennan's permission, they also talked to her therapist.

  The lesson? If you have a weird life story that you might like to write about someday—try to leave a paper trail.

  Stalked: A Decade On the Run [NYT]

He's the one openly feeding you all of this unflattering information, first of all, and self deprecation tends to be charming. He's recovered and made some amends.

But just as important is the running meta-commentary. Carr repeatedly and self-consciously points out the autobiographer's primal, protective instinct toward self-flattery, and corrects this with his own reporting about himself. He calls many of his own memories "myths" based on this fact checking.

Carr also admits some of his unfair advantages:

When a woman, any woman, has issues with substances, has kids out of wedlock and ends up struggling as a single parent, she is identified by many names: slut, loser, welfare mom, burden on society. Take those same circumstances and array them over a man, and he becomes a crown prince. See him doing that dad thing and, with a flick of the wrist, the mom thing too! Why is it that the same series of overt acts committed by a male becomes somehow ennobled?

Carr also cleverly takes a preemptive shot at judgmental readers:

In the convention of the recovery narrative, readers will want to scan past the tick-tock, looking for the yucky part so that they can feel better about themselves. ( (Here’s a taste: When I got to detox for what I thought was the last time, they took one look at my arms and brought me a tub filled with lukewarm water and Dreft detergent to soak my scabrous, pus-filled track marks. They dropped pills into my mouth from several inches away as if feeding a baby bird, and even the wet-brain drunks wouldn’t come near me. See how that works?)

Carr's excerpt is worth a read, not only because it's a page turner, but also because it's a remarkable example of how, amid the spread of internet protocelebrity and the return of tabloid-style media wars, one inoculates oneself against smear campaigns: Smear yourself first, in the most charming way possible.

[Times]

Her: What do you write?

Frey: I used to write screenplays now I write books.

Her: Oh, what kind of books, fiction or non-fiction?

Frey: (chuckles) Well, that's been up for debate recently.

Her: (absolutely no irony whatsoever) Well, don't you think you should choose?

Frey: (an arrogant laugh) To be honest with you, I don't really give a shit.

(Scene)

In related news, violence was reported at his book release party.

Crisis, violence, redemption, whatever: that's what he knew about. That's what he wrote about. That's what he passed off as nonfiction. That's why he sounded as if he'd seen too many lousy movies.
So the Bright Shiny Morning guy did it differently. He let the little vignette play out against a big, gaudy, dangerous Southern California backdrop, full of drug-dealing gang-bangers, full of schemers, phonies, rich with a history of robber barons, all of it listed here, all of it stacking the deck against any generosity of spirit. The son steals the maid's virtue? Been there, read that. They plot against the old lady? Been there too. This novelist wanted something else for Esperanza: he wanted to honor her, fall in love with her, do it with startling sincerity. He wanted to save her.

And it worked.

That's how James Frey saved himself.

"When her lover...told the newswoman she was the oldest woman he had ever been with, she wanted to say - but never did - 'Oh yeah? Well you are the blackest man I have ever been with.'"

While we await the sordid details surrounding the affair Walters is set to share with Oprah on Tuesday, we do finally hear Walters' real feelings regarding previous co-hosts Star Jones and Rosie O'Donnell. As the NYDN reports, Walters was particularly livid "when Jones refused to admit publicly that she had gastric bypass surgery to lose weight [and] her co-workers were forced to lie for her." And as for Rosie, it seems all that tension across the spotless flower-laden table shared by the ladies was just as real as we suspected. As Walters puts it, "The premise of The View is that of a team working together, but for Rosie it was more like Diana Ross and the Supremes, as little by little she took over." And after learning just how saucy Babs has been in the past, it's clear that there's only room for one diva at the table, even if Walters prefers her trademark white-blonde feathered bob to an enormous afro.

• BARBARA WALTERS: I HAD AN AFFAIR WITH MARRIED SENATOR EDWARD BROOKE [NYDN]
• THE VIEW [ABC]

However, "British public records are not available in the United States, and it was not possible to verify independently many of the details in Mr. Horsley's memoir." Also, the Times mentions that the publisher, Harper, "did not independently fact-check it." How one fact-checks a life of drugs and whoring, we'll never know. (Is this part of reporter Joyce Wadler's new guidelines for "vetting little-known subjects who are receiving attention for the first time"?)

Let's all sing it together: "We won't get fooled agaaaaain!"

Related: Former Gawker Choire Sicha reviewed Horsley's book for the NYT a few weeks back. In a post on his personal blog titled So Pleased That I Trust No One Ever, he explains, "I went out of my way to check on [Horsley's] accuracy as a memoirist." So he's clean.

[NYT]

There is a disclaimer at the end of the This American Life broadcast, to the effect that the Moth is a place where "people come to tell both true stories and occasional tall tales." As I think should be obvious if you listen to it, my story definitely belongs to the "tall tale" category. I hope you enjoy it. But please do so with a rather large grain of salt.

Gladwell has been telling the story of getting "perverse and often baffling" into the Washington Post for years. And as he says at the end of the story, you can look it up: He really did get the phrase in the paper (we found it on Nexis!). The story is not a total fabrication. On some level, Gladwell wants it both ways: He wants to tell a funny story, which the perverse and often baffling story is, and wants to be a trustworthy journalist. Is that worth condemnation?

When I heard Gladwell at the Moth event and later on This American Life, I let myself forget that that Moth stories can be tall tales. I took everything Gladwell said without a grain of salt, because, to keep the food analogy going, it tasted better that way. Perhaps I overreacted when Gladwell referred to having a "Jayson Blair moment" so casually.

As the memoir craze shows, people like "true" stories. Before James Frey turned out to be a liar, the dental surgery scene in A Million Little Pieces was moving precisely because I thought that Frey had really had a root canal without Novocain. There's no reason that story should be less inspiring because it was embellished, but somehow it is. The same is true for Walden, the Henry David Thoreau memoir of his life in the woods. Whenever that book comes up, some wiseass always needs to mention that Thoreau's mom did his laundry while he was contemplating self-reliance. But should that make his work any less valuable?

Maybe it's unfair that knowing that Gladwell wasn't exactly betting his friend to get absurd phrases into the Washington Post makes his story less compelling, even while it makes it less offensive. But it's a perverse and often baffling part of human nature that we want stories, even unbelievable ones, to be true.