Friday Reads: Not Buying It

Going Infinite: I don’t usually talk about books I’m not going to read, but I got to experience the rare feeling of being smarter than Michael Lewis, the author of Liar’s Poker and The Big Short. Lewis has been called the narrator of our age. He’s written insightful, compelling books about Wall Street, the great financial meltdown of 2008, the rise of Silicon Valley, and the government response to Covid-19. Now he’s busy promoting his new book, Going Infinite, the story of Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange that briefly made him a multibillionaire before it crashed and burned, taking billions of dollars with it. Lewis had a front-row seat for the whole thing, hanging out with Bankman-Fried and watching as it happened. I might have picked up the book to read his eyewitness account. Then, on 60 Minutes this week, Lewis said this:  

I find it hard to believe Lewis actually believes this. If your bank has transferred more than $8 billion of deposits into an account for the use of the bank president, then it’s probably some kind of scheme. And if you can’t pay your depositors when they ask for their money because you spent that money yourself, then it’s probably Ponzi-like, or at least Ponzi-adjacent.

I don’t know, maybe Lewis was being picky about the terminology, like when people get snooty about saying it’s only champagne if it comes from France. Maybe this was merely sparkling fraud.

I’ve read all of Lewis’ books about finance and technology. I studied his pieces when I was a business reporter because he is so good at his job. One of his great gifts as a journalist is to ask the obvious questions.

But in this case, it looks like he ignored warning signs about FTX big enough to be seen from space.

Lewis’ work was already undergoing a reevaluation before Going Infinite. I never read The Blind Side, about a Black football player “adopted” by a wealthy white family, but it was criticized at the time as an insulting and demeaning narrative, and is now being attacked by that player, Michael Oher, as fiction.1 This has also renewed older complaints that Moneyball, Lewis’ book about the Oakland A’s and the rise of statistics-based managing, was simply wrong.2

UPDATED TO ADD: I’m not the only one who’s questioning Lewis’ work: Michael Hitzlik of the LA Times, who is always worth reading, has a great review and takedown of Lewis’ credulous thinking here. He offers Number Go Up by Bloomberg’s Zeke Faux, as a truthful alternative to Lewis’ dogged attempts to find a happy ending in SBF’s story.3

Look, a reporter can bite down hard on a premise and have a hard time letting go. I know this because I did it. I was the first reporter to cover Pixelon, the Internet startup that spent its investors’ money on a massive concert in Las Vegas and a video-streaming app that didn’t actually work. (If I’d been smarter, I would have gone to Vegas and watched it all implode from backstage.)

But you can also change your mind and still write the story. Joe McGinniss was supposed to write a book proclaiming Jeffrey MacDonald’s innocence of the murder of his wife and two daughters; he became convinced Macdonald was guilty and wrote Fatal Vision instead.

Even without my purchase, Going Infinite is going to sell a bazillion copies, so I’m sure Lewis will be wrong all the way to the bank.

I would just like to ask him if he would invest any of that money with Sam Bankman-Fried. I’m pretty sure the answer would be “Oh hell no.”

The Maniac: I am unreasonably excited — like, “teenage girl with Taylor Swift tickets” level — for Benjamín Labatut’s new book, The Maniac, which I did pick up this week. Labatut’s previous book, When We Cease to Understand the World, was one of my favorite reads in the past five years. Labatut has a deceptively simple way of talking about complex ideas. He makes genius sound like a hunter stalking the prey that will eventually turn and devour them. I’m literally saving this book for the weekend, because this is my idea of a good time.4

Goodbye, Sterling Archer: I have a piece in the Orange County Register and other papers this week about Archer, the cartoon spy parody that won multiple Emmys with its combination of incredibly smart writing and incredibly filthy jokes. It’s signing off after fourteen seasons, and I am going to miss it. It’s also nice to be in the Register again, which is the paper that hired me and moved me to California, for which I will always be grateful.

If you watched the show and you’re looking for more, I also recommend How to Archer, a tie-in novelty book that was somehow as funny and smart as the series.

FRIENDS AND WELL-WISHERS

Return to Hill House: My friend Elizabeth Hand also has a book out this week: A Haunting on the Hill, a story that returns to the setting of Shirley Jackson’s Hill House. If you have never picked up any of Liz’s work, it’s time for you to remedy that. Whether she’s writing crime fiction about punk photographer Cass Neary, or a disturbing account of a band stalked by old magic in a house in the English countryside, she always creates narratives that seem anchored in reality even as they go deep into unfamiliar territory. Liz’s incredible prose leads you from the familiar into the strange, bit by bit, step by step, until you look up and realize you are very far from home and there are things in the shadows. You can start anywhere, with any of her books. You’ll discover entirely new worlds.

The View from Iowa: I began subscribing to Lyz Lenz’s newsletter, Men Yell At Me, shortly after she was fired from her job at a newspaper in Iowa for telling the truth a little too aggressively for her bosses. (I think every ex-reporter out there can probably relate.) Reading it became one of the highlights of my week. I left my own home state; she stuck with hers, even though it’s cost her. It takes a lot of bravery and strength just to be a single mom (as my own mom taught me) and it takes even more to make a living doing what you love. Now Lenz is telling the full story about divorce in America through her personal lens in This American Ex-Wife, which will hit shelves in February. Definitely picking it up.

That’s it for this week. As always, reading recommendations and reviews are welcome in the comments.