Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs
A Journey Through the Deep State
1 of 1 copy available
“Riveting and darkly funny and in all senses of the word, unclassifiable.” – The New York Times
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.
-
Creators
-
Publisher
-
Awards
-
Release date
March 21, 2023 -
Formats
-
OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593591901
- File size: 201863 KB
- Duration: 07:00:32
-
-
Languages
- English
-
Reviews
-
January 16, 2023
In this fascinating dispatch from the height of the surveillance age, Howley (Thrown) expands on her New York magazine profile of Reality Winner, the intelligence specialist who leaked classified reports on Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. Born in Texas in 1991, Winner was a “comically mature adolescent... with a compulsive drive to improve herself.” Skilled with foreign languages, she joined the Air Force after high school and learned Dari, Pashto, and Farsi; assigned to the drone program, she sat “in a cubicle in Maryland and eavesdropped on Pakistani men day after day.” After her honorable discharge from the military, Winner was hired by an NSA contractor to translate intercepted communications related to Iran’s aerospace program. Her security clearance gave her access to a top-secret report on Russian efforts to hack into U.S. election systems, which she leaked to the Intercept in 2017. Based on extensive interviews with Winner, her family, and her friends, and enriched by incisive character sketches of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, and other whistleblowers, Howley reveals how the gravest threat to the national security state has become “ideological, morally serious twentysomethings finding themselves as they sifted through secrets their younger selves had promised to keep.” Witty, humane, and fiercely intelligent, this is a striking critique of a world intent on “burying itself” in information. -
June 10, 2024
Essayist, screenwriter, and New York magazine feature writer Howley (Thrown) delivers a fascinating exploration of the secretive world of the deep state. Howley delves into murky government conspiracies, providing a meticulously researched account and a captivating, suspense-filled narrative. The author's ability to blend factual information with engaging storytelling will keep listeners engrossed from start to finish. Nikki Massoud's narration is exceptional. Her voice is confident and nuanced, and her character differentiation enhances the audio experience, allowing listeners to fully engage with the many personalities in the text. Whistleblowers such as Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, and John Kiriakou are mentioned, but the bulk of the story focuses on Reality Winner, a former NSA linguist and translator. Winner's arrest and imprisonment for mailing five printed pages of classified information is compared to the punishment for much larger breaches made by more famous people such as David Petraeus. VERDICT Grimly witty but also deeply unnerving, listeners will be on the edge of their seats. This is a winner for public libraries.--Christa Van Herreweghe
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
-