{"product_id":"9781555979829","title":"Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLonglisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“There Kevin Young goes again, giving us books we greatly need, cleverly disguised as books we merely want. Unexpectedly essential.”—Marlon James\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAward-winning poet and critic Kevin Young tours us through a rogue’s  gallery of hoaxers, plagiarists, forgers, and fakers—from the humbug of  P. T. Barnum and Edgar Allan Poe to the unrepentant bunk of JT LeRoy and  Donald J. Trump. \u003ci\u003eBunk\u003c\/i\u003e traces the history of the hoax as a  peculiarly American phenomenon, examining what motivates hucksters and  makes the rest of us so gullible. Disturbingly, Young finds that fakery  is woven from stereotype and suspicion, race being the most insidious  American hoax of all. He chronicles how Barnum came to fame by  displaying figures like Joice Heth, a black woman whom he pretended was  the 161-year-old nursemaid to George Washington, and What Is It?, an  African American man Barnum professed was a newly discovered missing  link in evolution.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBunk\u003c\/i\u003e then turns to the hoaxing  of history and the ways that forgers, plagiarists, and journalistic  fakers invent backstories and falsehoods to sell us lies about  themselves and about the world in our own time, from pretend Native  Americans Grey Owl and Nasdijj to the deadly imposture of Clark  Rockefeller, from the made-up memoirs of James Frey to the identity  theft of Rachel Dolezal. In this brilliant and timely work, Young asks  what it means to live in a post-factual world of “truthiness” where  everything is up for interpretation and everyone is subject to a  pervasive cynicism that damages our ideas of reality, fact, and art.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Graywolf Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47128414650608,"sku":"9781555979829","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781555979829_p0.jpg?v=1763755456","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781555979829","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}