Madoff: The Final Word
Behar approaches this towering mountain of material with rigor, but also a certain informality. He delights in its wackier crags ... Behar...seems determined to see Madoff’s humanity, and the tragedy of his family ... Boils a story of mythic proportions down to a bowlful of golden nuggets. If this is the first time you’re being served, so much the better.
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It is a deeply reported and occasionally overwhelmingly detailed examination of Madoff’s motives and methods ... Behar, refreshingly, turns out to be a bit of a contrarian, questioning some of the received wisdom about the case and, at the very least, prompting us to consider whether a story prone to reductionism is more nuanced than we thought.
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At this late date, does anyone care? To Behar’s great credit, given how endlessly and skillfully Madoff has been chronicled, he does pull off some feats of reporting and thinking that make the book a valuable addition to the Madoff pantheon ... Behar seems to have gotten exhausted by the endlessness, and perhaps fruitlessness, of his quest, and his exhaustion makes readers exhausted, too. He begins to quote endlessly from transcripts of his interviews, and to get lost in the minutiae of courtroom details, sure signs of a writer who has gotten desperate ... While his book might be the final word—let’s hope so—even Behar can’t answer some of the questions he raises.
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