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The Runner: A True Account of the Amazing Lies and Fantastical Adventures of the Ivy League Impostor James Hogue
by David Samuels

The Runner: A True Account of the Amazing Lies and Fantastical Adventures of the Ivy League Impostor James Hogue Cover

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Only Love Can Break Your Heart (New Press) collects Harper's contributing editor David Samuels's previously published stories depicting a skewed odyssey through an America populated by idealists and outsiders. Samuels's The Runner (New Press), based on one of the most talked-about New Yorker articles from the past decade, tells how James Hogue created a new identity for himself and lied his way into Princeton University, made the track team, and dated a millionaire's daughter before his deception was finally exposed.

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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

A classic american story of a homeless drifter who tries to start a new life by applying to Princeton University, based on the acclaimed New Yorker article.

On the morning of March 30, 1988, a police detective named Matt Jacobson arrived at a storage facility in St. George, Utah, with a warrant to search for stolen bicycles. Among the stolen goods and dusty athletic trophies in Locker 100, Jacobson also found some recent correspondence showing that the thief, James Hogue, had been dreaming of a new and better life as a person named Alexi Santana — a self-educated Nevada cowboy who could run a mile in just over four minutes and had applied for admission to some of America's finest universities, including Stanford, Princeton, and Brown.

Thus began a classic American narrative of self-invention that falls somewhere between The Great Gatsby and The Talented Mr. Ripley, Hogue's story — how he fooled the Princeton University admissions department, got straight A's, made the Princeton track team, dated a millionaire's daughter, and was accepted into the elite Ivy Club before his deception was finally exposed — turns out to be both an intensely affecting profile of a dreamer and the limits of his dream, and a striking indictment of the Ivy League meritocracy to which Hogue wanted so badly to belong.

Taking off from his widely read New Yorker article, David Samuels adds substantial new reporting, telling the sad story of Hogue's itinerant life after he was expelled from Princeton and providing fascinating new insights into the Ivy League's most famous impostor.

Review:

"In this extended riff on Samuels's New Yorker article of the same name, the author pursues James Hogue, portrayed as a cunning, intelligent drifter who at age 28, in 1988, created a new identity for himself as Alexi Santana, a 16-year-old cowboy, who became the Princeton University admissions committee's darling. Santana's Princeton matriculation was delayed because, unbeknownst to school authorities, Hogue was doing time for bicycle theft. One year later, Santana, a talented runner, entered the school without a hitch until a track meet spectator outed the impostor during his sophomore year. Though Samuels has a gift for contextualizing people and events, he misses his mark in this repetitive and fragmented profile. He is so taken by his elusive subject, whom he calls 'a convicted fabulist,' that he lets Hogue, a compulsive liar and criminal with repeated offenses, off the hook far too easily. To Samuels, Hogue's behavior is as harmless as the youthful lies the author formerly told strangers on airplanes. But the lie and the con are not one and the same, and the reader winces as Hogue cons his way past Samuels's otherwise intelligent grasp." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Review:

"A dizzying, exhilarating tale of deception, duplicity and the search for personal identity." Kirkus Reviews

Review:

"Hogue, for all his deceptions, was genuinely an elite runner... and Samuels is an elite narrative journalist, a master at teasing out the social and moral implications of the smallest small talk, of the way people turn their heads or slide into non sequitur as they try to explain themselves." Keith Gessen, The New York Times Book Review

Review:

"The tale of Hogue's time in Telluride and his Princeton years is particularly engaging and detailed. [The] portrait of Hogue reveals a truly complex figure who is driven, intelligent, incredibly well-read, deceitful, arrogant, scrappy, athletic, curious and, in a way, pathetic in his need to pretend to be someone else." Sam Jemielity, Playboy.com

Review:

"[T]he grace with which Samuels unravels the complex character of James Hogue testifies to the author's reputation as a beloved heir to the New Journalists of the 1960s." Nicole Tourtelot, Time Out New York

Review:

"'The story of his life would have little, if anything, to do with whatever version of the story I might choose to write,' Samuels notes. This is no writerly cop-out, but a profound truth about the slipperiness of identity....Samuels succeeds in showing a man who's not really sure if he even exists." Richard Rayner, the Los Angeles Times Book Review

Review:

"[T]erse, passionate, and complicated." James Hannaham, the Village Voice

Synopsis:

Based on one of the most talked-about "New Yorker" articles from the past decade, "The Runner" tells how James Hogue created a new identity for himself and lied his way into Princeton University, made the track team, and dated a millionaire's daughter before his deception was finally exposed.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
cosifan, May 3, 2008 (view all comments by cosifan)
I had read Samuels' original piece about James Hogue in the New Yorker in 2001, and remember thinking then that it would make a great book. Now, seven years later, Samuels has expanded his piece about the petty thief and compulsive runner Hogue into an amazing work -- short but stuffed with obviously hard-won details. Hogue first conned his way into Princeton University and became a top student. He then used his odd charms and talents to bedazzle (and defraud) many citizens of Telluride, Colorado, from his shack across the street from Oprah Winfrey's former home. It's a sad and bitchily amusing story, told by a master.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9781595581884
Subtitle:
A True Account of the Amazing Lies and Fantastical Adventures of the Ivy League Impostor James Hogue
Author:
Samuels, David
Author:
Samuels, David
Publisher:
New Press
Subject:
General
Subject:
Impostors and imposture
Subject:
Colorado
Subject:
Criminals & Outlaws
Subject:
Other Miscellaneous Crimes
Subject:
General True Crime
Subject:
Runners (Sports)
Publication Date:
March 2008
Binding:
Hardcover
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
176
Dimensions:
8 x 6 in
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