Is Bernie Madoff 'Free at Last'?

In a recent New York magazine article, writer Steve Fishman sheds light on Bernie Madoff's life behind bars. The lengthy profile reveals a string of insider details, some far more telling than accounts of Madoff's prison rumble back in October.

For starters, the disgraced financier viewed by most as a thief and criminal for swindling an estimated $65 billion in history's worst Ponzi scheme, is regarded as somewhat of a celebrity at the federal correctional complex in Butner, N.C. He has an entourage of "groupies," according to the article, and though he shuns all autograph requests, he has managed to cultivate these relationships over time. Some even go as far as dubbing him "a hero" and turn to him for advice on anything from investing to entrepreneurship.

Then there's Madoff's talent for delegating duties on to others, hiring an inmate to do his laundry for $8 a month -- negotiating a discounted rate nonetheless. On the flip side, Madoff has energetically thrown himself into the prison-work world, even though he's exempted from chores because of his age. Fishman writes:

"He proposed that he serve as the clerk in charge of budget. He had qualifications—he'd been chairman of NASDAQ. 'Hell, no,' said the supervisor to Evans, laughing. 'I do my own budget. I know what he did on the outside.'"

Instead, Madoff was assigned to maintenance and cafeteria floor-sweeping duty.

Perhaps the most startling inclusion in the article is that Madoff reportedly feels little remorse for what he has done. Instead, Fishman suggests he might even be relieved that he is no longer living a lie. The article explains:

"'It was a nightmare for me,' he told investigators, using the word over and over, as if he were the real victim. 'I wish they caught me six years ago, eight years ago,' he said in a little-noticed interview with them."

As for his victims...

"'F--k my victims,' he said, loud enough for other inmates to hear. 'I carried them for twenty years, and now I'm doing 150 years.'"

For an in-depth view on Madoff's life in prison, read Steve Fishman's full article in New York magazine.

--

Message Edited by ReneeDeFranco on 06-09-2010 10:08 AM

New Yorker unveils '20 under 40' young writers list

 

New Yorker editor David Remnick said the list was “meant to shine a light on writers and get people to pay attention". Photograph: Harry Bliss/AP

 

Martin Amis, Ian McEwan and Julian Barnes made a list of the best young British novelists in 1983; David Foster Wallace, Jhumpa Lahiri and Jeffrey Eugenides were named among the best American writers under 40 in 1999. Now the New Yorker has selected the 20 young writers it believes we'll be reading in years to come, with Jonathan Safran Foer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Joshua Ferris and Wells Tower all making the cut.

The eminent American literary magazine will publish the '20 under 40' fiction writers it believes are worth watching in its Monday issue. Ranging from the 24-year-old Téa Obreht, whose debut novel will be published next year, to the 39-year-old writer Chris Adrian, the list is an eclectic mix of famous and lesser-known names, neatly dividing between the genders and providing readers with a guide to potential future literary stars.

The list, compiled by the magazine's fiction team, is restricted to writers who are from or based in north America.

"I was a boy when my family left the Soviet Union," said the award-winning Canadian author and filmmaker David Bezmozgis, 37. "We came to Canada with nothing and my parents had never heard about the New Yorker or most anything else. It seems strange and remarkable to me that 30 years later I would find myself on such a list.

"But then, it seems that a number of writers on this list are from somewhere else. So I suppose it means that the trend in American life is being reflected in new American writing."

New Yorker editor David Remnick said the list was "meant to shine a light on writers and get people to pay attention". "What matters is that someone pays attention to a writer they might not have known, and that they read – that's all I want."

36-year-old Philipp Meyer, whose debut novel American Rust was published last year, said it was "enormously validating" to be chosen by the New Yorker – though he admitted that such an exercise "seems very useful when you're the one picked, but if you are not picked, you need to ignore it completely."

Some acclaimed American writers just missed out by dint of age; Dave Eggers is 40, Aleksandar Hemon 45, Colson Whitehead 40.

"It's disappointing they didn't manage to find a space for Dave Eggers but I suppose that's their rules," said the Booker-shortlisted British author Philip Hensher, who was picked as one of Granta's best young British novelists in 2003, at the age of 37. Although he admitted that it made his publishing career "a bit easier overseas", he did feel that "these age-related things are a bit artificial".
The New Yorker list might include 10 women, but Hensher said that in general such line-ups can be "rather unfair to women novelists".

"There's a well-known phenomenon of the woman novelist who puts off her career, maybe to have children," said Hensher, "so she doesn't really make an impact until after she's 40 … a good example is Penelope Fitzgerald, who only emerged about five years before the first Granta list, and of course she was 60."
He suggested it might make more sense to select the authors "who have just emerged in the last five years", rather than basing it on age. "Novel writing isn't necessarily something that young people are very good at," he said. "I was 29 when I published my first novel, but I wish I'd waited."

Ben Okri, who won the Booker prize aged 32 for The Famished Road, said he felt lists like the New Yorker's could be "pretty dangerous".

"They're very helpful for writers and they are encouraging, and can identify future talents, but on the other hand sometimes they're too soon," said the author at the Guardian Hay festival.
"We will see in 10 years' time [how these authors have fared]. What matters is not the list but that mystical quality called genius – and a bit of luck."

Beijing-born Yiyun Li, who like two other authors on the list – Jonathan Safran Foer and Dinaw Mengestu – won the Guardian First Book Award, praised the New Yorker for including a host of short story writers in its line-up. "[That] means a lot to me, as I love stories, and it is always encouraging that The New Yorker treats stories and story writers seriously," she said.

The top 20

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 32
Chris Adrian, 39
Daniel Alarcón, 33
David Bezmozgis, 37
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, 38
Joshua Ferris, 35
Jonathan Safran Foer, 33
Nell Freudenberger, 35
Rivka Galchen, 34
Nicole Krauss, 35
Dinaw Mengestu, 31
Philipp Meyer, 36
C  E Morgan, 33
Téa Obreht, 24
Yiyun Li, 37
ZZ Packer, 37
Karen Russell, 28
Salvatore Scibona, 35
Gary Shteyngart, 37
Wells Tower, 37 

Porfiry Does Perugia

Regular readers of The Rap Sheet will undoubtedly recognize the name Roger (or “R.N.”) Morris. He’s not only an infrequent contributor to this blog, but he’s also the author of a pair of novels that feature the fictional mid-19th-century Russian detective, Porfiry Petrovich, introduced in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment (1866): 2007’s The Gentle Axe (published in Great Britain as A Gentle Axe) and 2008’s A Vengeful Longing.

This author was born in Manchester, England, and studied Classics at Cambridge. He worked for many years as a freelance advertising copywriter, while simultaneously penning fiction. He has a composed a horror story, “The Devil’s Drum,” which became a short opera, and was performed at the Purcell Room in London. His first novel, Taking Comfort (Macmillian, 2006) was a contemporary urban thriller. Building on the popularity of his first two Porfiry Petrovich yarns, Morris has recently submitted to his publisher the third book in that series, A Razor Wrapped in Silk.

Morris’ prose is polished, his plotting is superb, and he has a refined sense of black humor. He’s a writer from whom other writers might learn. So, when Morris and his family arrived on holiday recently in the Umbria region of central Italy, we asked him to speak to readers in the local capital of Perugia. The temperature at that time was in the mid-30s, which we feared would put off all but the most enthusiastic fans. Fortunately, though, almost three dozen people turned up to hear us ask Morris questions (and ask a few questions of their own) about The Gentle Axe (which was published in Italy as Il Giudice Porfirij), his evolution as a writer, and his associations with the land and literature of Russia.


Michael Gregorio: Tell us about the curious dedication which introduces A Gentle Axe: “For my mother, Norma, who likes a good murder.” Surely there’s a story there.


R.N. Morris: My mother was a keen reader of what we would probably call “pulp.” She liked nothing better than a good thriller. A good murder, too. I suppose that’s where my own interest in the genre springs from. There were always crime books scattered round the house, and it was inevitable that I would start to read them sooner or later.


MG: What kind of thing were you first drawn to?


RNM: Well, initially, I suppose, Agatha Christie and the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, but even before that I had got a taste for suspense by reading Enid Blyton. Do you remember the series of books that she wrote for children featuring the Secret Seven and the Famous Five, where a minor mystery turns into an adventure for the kids who stumble on it? I really loved those books!


MG: So, how did you graduate, let’s say, from reading to writing about crime?


RNM: It all started at school. I always seemed to love writing, and I liked telling stories. And then at secondary school, we had an English teacher who gave us homework at the weekends, and often we had to write a short story. Well, that was fine by me. I didn’t attach much importance to it, until, one day, our teacher was absent, and another teacher sat in with the class and decided that we ought to read our stories out loud. “Who shall we begin with?” he asked the class, and all the kids called out in a single voice, more or less: “Roger, Roger Morris!” That was when I began to wonder whether I might eventually become a writer ...


MG: How did you eventually become a writer?


RNM: Well, it all comes down to mum again. As well as crime novels, she used to read women’s magazines, like Woman and Woman’s Own, and so on, and they all contained short stories. I’d pick them up and read them, and I suppose I learnt from them because I began trying to write stories along the same lines. Inevitably, I began to submit them, too. But I just kept getting rejection after rejection ...


MG: But that changed, too.


RNM: Well, yes. I suddenly realized that I was trying to write for older women, and that maybe I wasn’t ready for it. I also realized that there were other magazines aimed at teenagers--mainly girls, again--and I had a go at writing for them. And finally, one of my stories was published. That was a real thrill for me. Well, I did some more of those while I was studying at university, and, of course, the next step was to think about writing a novel.


MG: Which you did.


RNM: Well, I did, but they didn’t really go anywhere. I have a suitcase full of unpublished novels under the bed. Eventually, I found myself an agent, and the books were sent out to publishers, and they came back again, and all with the same result. Zilch!


MG: Just like us! Mike [aka Michael G. Jacob, the English half of the husband-and-wife writing team who publish as “Michael Gregorio”] has had three agents, Daniela [De Gregorio] has had two, and we have the same stack of old papers hidden away somewhere. What about you, Roger?


RNM: I’ve had two agents, as well. The second one, my present agent, Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson, did the rounds with the books, and it was just the same, they didn’t really seem to be going anywhere. He was on the point of giving up, I think, but then I had this idea for a crime novel featuring Porfiry Petrovich and St. Petersburg. His eyes lit up at that and I could tell I was on to something.


MG: People in Italy don’t really understand how important a literary agent is. Here, they hardly exist, you know, because so much fiction--over 90 percent--is imported from America and the European countries. OK, Roger, so you had an agent, you were writing novels, and suddenly you got a break. Well, in fact you got two breaks!


RNM: Yeah, that was funny, really. I wrote the first Porfiry book, A Gentle Axe, my agent sent it out, and [publisher] Faber and Faber expressed an immediate interest. At almost the same moment, Macmillan were keen to take on a literary novel--let’s call it a novel of “contemporary interest”--which I had written, entitled Taking Comfort. Well, that caused a bit of confusion. I didn’t want to tell either publisher in case they both pulled out.


MG: And thus, you published both books. One as R.N. Morris, the other as Roger Morris. So, in a sense, you were free to choose the direction that you wanted to take after that experience. Why did you concentrate on crime-writing?


RNM: Can I say “for the money”? It wasn’t only that, of course. When Faber bought the first Porfiry book, A Gentle Axe, the contract was for two books, so I was lined up straight away to write a second one, and I already had ideas for four novels featuring him … Also, I was fascinated by the prospect of working in the crime genre; I saw it as a real challenge. I wanted to know if I could do it.


MG: Where did your interest in Porfiry Petrovich come from?


RNM: Well, I had started reading the Russians in English translation, and I picked up a copy of Crime and Punishment from the library. I was taken in by the amazing blurb on the back cover, really. It concentrated almost entirely on the figure of Porfiry, who was described as being “one of the very first detectives in fiction.” It made the book sound like a crime novel--which it was, of course--though when I read it, I realized how minor a role Porfiry actually plays. Still, I was fascinated by the book, hooked by the crime that Dostoevsky described, the leaden atmosphere and the crushing poverty of the time, as well as by the huge religious and philosophical ideas in the book. I saw a lot of scope in the character of Porfiry Petrovich, too, and I dreamt of doing something with him. At the same time, it all seemed a bit daunting. I didn’t speak Russian, I hadn’t been to Russia. I didn’t really know how to go about it. The more I thought about it, however, the more I wanted to do it. In the end, I sat down and I tried.


QUESTION FROM THE AUDIENCE:How did you go about researching the book?


RNM: Mainly through reading Russian novels of the time, particularly Dostoevsky, of course. Also, I studied street maps of St. Petersburg, did a lot of reading, used the Internet. It was more complicated than it sounds, because so much had changed--the names of streets and squares, for example--as a consequence of the [1917 Russian] Revolution. Finally, I thought, well, it’s all there, Dostoevsky knew the place, and it worked for him. I sort of followed the topography as he had laid it out ...


QUESTION FROM THE AUDIENCE: And you’d never been to Russia?


RNM: Not then. I went on holiday shortly after the first book was published, and while I was writing the second novel, A Vengeful Longing. I was amazed, you know. It was a surreal sort of experience. Very dreamlike. I seemed to know the place like the back of my hand, it matched up pretty well with what I had imagined and written. And with what I’d read of Dostoevsky, obviously. I met a Russian guy--a genuine St. Petersburgian called Andrey--who was on my flight over. We got chatting on the Metro into St. Petersburg. He told me his life story and offered to take me on a walking tour of the city. I gave him a copy of A Gentle Axe and he contacted me after he had read it and told me he was struck by “the strong Russian, St. Petersburg feel of it.” I think he had been a bit skeptical, with me being an Englishman.


MG: And there’s more of Porfiry Petrovich in the pipeline, right?


RNM: Well, I have just submitted the third novel in the series, and I’m pretty pleased with it. It is entitled A Razor Wrapped in Silk, and it features the abduction of a child factory laborer and the sensational murder of a society beauty--two crimes from opposite ends of the social spectrum.


MG: It sounds fantastic. We look forward to reading it, and to seeing the Italian translation of A Vengeful Longing, which should be appearing soon in Italy. A final question, Roger: Will A Razor Wrapped in Silk bring the Porfiry Petrovich series to an end?


RNM: Book 4 is all planned out and I’m ready to start writing it just as soon as we get home!


(Author photo by Claire Morris.)

 ---

Michael Gregorio, The Rap Sheet, Tuesday September 8, 2009

Edith's War - author interview

Below is an interview I conducted with Andrew Smith about his novel EDITH'S WAR (recently released on March 26 2010).

"EDITH'S WAR is a story of hardship, love, passion, and motherhood during Liverpool's Blitz of World War II. In early summer of 1940 young Edith Maguire witnesses the internment of her Italian neighbours following Mussolini's declaration of war against Britain. Edith is swept up in the unthinkable event of her Italian friends' deportation to Canada on the Arandora Star and experiences first-hand the hardships and grief that ensue as a result of the ship's fateful voyage..."

Andrew Smith tells how he wrote the book, his inspiration and the connections between Britain, Canada and Italy below:

1

EDITH'S WAR tells a little-known story about Italian internment in Britain during WWII. How did you first encounter this information (new to me), and decide it would make a good novel?


I knew I wanted to write about how WWII changed British society, how the war was the mechanism that caused people to examine the way society worked and to call into question many of the conventions that had existed for centuries. I was researching this at the Imperial War Museum in London when I stumbled across the story of Italian internment in UK. The addition of Italians to the book, who are generally viewed as easy-going and uninhibited, especially compared to the British, fulfilled a welcome contrast to the depiction of an uptight British population. Also the accounts of their internment by harmless Italian men were classic examples of the stupidity of war and also of the way normal standards can change and deteriorate during wartime. This wartime shift in morality in relation to how the British Italians were treated, so different to how they might have been treated in peacetime, appalled and fascinated me.

2

I greatly enjoyed your evocation of place in the book - Liverpool, Venice (I am from Warrington, a town near Liverpool). Why/how did you choose these cities in particular to tell the story?

As you know, Liverpool was one of the hardest hit cities in Britain during bombing by the Germans. Liverpudlians suffered greatly during WWII. It was also the port from which many "aliens" were shipped to Canada or Australia, including hundreds of British Italian men. And the juxtaposition of the easy-going hedonistic and sensual city of Venice with the somewhat stiff and proper character that the younger brother had become, made him seem even more inhibited. And I made Venice the original home of the Italian couple who had lived in Liverpool during the war as a device to move the plot along. And finally you tend to write about what you know. I grew up on Merseyside, in Huyton, not far from Warrington, in the 40s and 50s. And I also know Venice well having spent a lot of time there during the last twenty years.

3

What was the greatest struggle you faced in writing the book?


There are good struggles and bad struggles. It's a huge struggle to write a novel like Edith's War because I had to do so much research and then the struggle that all author's face in developing characters, evolving a plot, etc. etc. But these are good struggles; I loved every minute of the research and writing stage. Then there is another huge struggle to get published. I tried long and hard to find an agent and a publisher and experienced many rejections along the way. This part of the process is excruciating and can be depressing if you start to take the rejections personally. One has to be strong, stick by the courage of your convictions, and realize that publishing is a business like any other.

4

Do you feel you are making a political point in writing this story? You decided to address the subject matter in the form of a novel. Why not non-fiction, or some other form?

If I'm making a political point it has to do with emphasizing the omnipresence and senselessness of war, and the fact that society seems unable to change in any significant way. I've written and published two non-fiction books, which I enjoyed writing, but I think it's difficult to impose passion and a distinct point of view into non-fiction. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I think it's easier to do it more effectively in fiction. I wanted to state very clearly how humankind seems unable to avoid war (witness the presence of wars constantly throughout history), yet how senseless and unfair war always is. Even WWII, which might be seen as justified from the Allies' perspective, has hundreds if not thousands of examples of inhumanity and unnecessary suffering imposed by all sides. The novel form allowed me to portray actual events and have the reader make no mistake that I viewed them as senseless and unnecessary. I also wanted to imply how difficult it is for any of us to change, on a personal level but also on a larger scale, as a society. A non-fiction book usually only tells the story, whereas a novel can show the effects of a story and be so much more emotive in the telling.

5

How are you enjoying the publishing process, having your first book released? If there's one thing you could change about publishing a novel, what would it be?


It's very rewarding to hold the finished product of so much work in one's hands. But, to go back to my point about publishing being a business, I don't think many authors are prepared for the dog-eat-dog commercial side of publishing. I'm fortunate because I was somewhat prepared by my work in publishing, I'm a book designer, but even I wasn't ready for the alarming truths of how difficult it is to get one's book noticed and into the bookstores. If there's one thing I could change it would be that books are sold on their merit alone, and not because a publisher paid for a prominent position in a bookstore, or because the author has a TV show, or has won a literary prize, or one of the hundred other reasons a book gets noticed other than for the quality of writing or cleverness of plot, etc. But I'm sounding cynical. I'm really not, and I do still believe that if a book is good it'll get the readership it deserves.

6

A good amount of the novel is set in and about Italy. Do you feel personally connected to Italy?

Not particularly, other than I've spent a lot of time there since I was in my twenties and have quite a few Italian friends whom I love, and I like Italy better than almost anywhere else.

7

Do you remember when you first wanted to be a writer?


Yes I do, because I started writing late in life. It was 1988 and I was forty-years-old, when I took my first creative writing course. Just previous to that I had taken a bus trip over the Himalayas from Kashmir to Ladakh in Northern India and written a magazine article about it, the first piece of writing I'd ever published. The article won an award for travel writing, which inspired me to write more. So I took some courses and started writing short fiction, which I love writing. I don't know why it took me so long. I don't think being a writer was presented as an option at the school I went to in Liverpool so I never thought of it. So I went to art school and became a graphic designer. I've been lucky to have found writing, and to have another profession that allows me time to write but also keeps the wolf from the door. Because, as we know, books rarely provide much of an income.

8

How important are family relations in telling a good story?


I think human relations of any kind are crucial to a good story. We all need something we can relate to and human relations provide a great deal that is familiar to us all. I suppose family relations are often the most intense and usually the most influential on our lives so they hold a certain gravitas that no other relations hold, they're what forms us. So, while not necessary to a good story, family relations are certainly wonderful additions to a story.

9

What is your work schedule like when you're writing?

Once I've done research and am into the writing stage I tend to get up fairly early in the morning and write solidly for four to six hours. Once I actually sit down and put fingers to keyboard the time usually flies by. But I'm as bad as most writers about starting, I'll make a cup of tea I don't really need or thumb through a magazine I've already read. I don't know why many writers find it hard to actually start writing; maybe because it's so intense, it's hard work to write, and it's rather tiring. Often when I eventually stop I'm fairly drained. But once I start I rarely look up, except to check research, until I just run out of steam some half-a-dozen hours later.


10

What are you working on right now? A departure, or something related to historical fiction across different times and places like EDITH'S WAR?


Some months ago, at a stage when Edith's War was out of my hands with an editor, I wrote the first two chapters of a book set in contemporary London. Unlike Edith's War it'll be a straight single time period narrative. The story is about a paparazzi photographer who is down on his luck having lost his business and his wife. He's a recovering alcoholic, estranged from his family, and broke. But he has a cache of photos of celebrities that might be worth a great deal. But because of his alcoholism and past indiscretions nobody wants to know. There's a whole plot in my head about how an opportunity to get exclusive photos of a drugged-out music star falls in his lap. Actually it's a ploy by the recording company to get publicity, etc. etc. The idea comes from a fascination I have with the symbiotic relationship that celebrities often have with the press. Princess Di being a prime example. I'm also interested in the whole phenomenon of celebrity, especially in our society with the proliferation of shows like American Idol and with people like Paris Hilton who have no talent or skill (they don't even model) but who have become celebrities earning millions. I'm keen to get back to writing it, but first we have to get out there and sell Edith's War.


Thank you for your time, Andrew. You can read more about EDITH'S WAR at http://www.edithswar.com/ and on Facebook here.


I'll also be posting this interview on http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/ and a link from my website http://www.mattfullerty.com/.

Biography
Andrew Smith was born in Liverpool, England. He moved to Toronto, Canada in 1974 since when he's worked in magazines and book publishing. Andrew Smith's writing has been included in the Journey Prize Anthology, has been shortlisted for the CBC Literary Awards, and has garnered a Western Magazine Award for Travel Writing. He has published two non-fiction books: Highlights, an illustrated history of cannabis (co-author) and Strangers in the Garden, the secret lives of our favorite flowers. He's enjoyed writing fiction since 1990, which, fortunately, is when he began.