"Told with uproarious brio...heavenly...A book so lively that its
wild stories are virtually wall to wall."
--Janet Maslin, "New York Times"
"An extraordinary saga of the most dangerous quack of all time...A
talented storyteller, [Brock] digs deep into the personal secrets
of his characters...entrancing."
--"USA Today"
"You will devour" Charlatan," Pope Brock's tale of fools and
fanatics. With a vast and wild cast of characters, and filled with
issues and topics that resonate through the years" Charlatan" begs
comparison with Erik Larson's" The Devil in the White City" and
deserves to be a best seller."
--"Chicago Tribune"
"Written with glee, in a style that is pure gusto, a bubbling
fountain of metaphor and arresting image...Fishbein's campaign
against Brinkley makes up one strand of this extraordinary tale and
provides it with a bravura courtroom finale."
--"Boston Globe"
"Superbly crafted and enthralling...Brock's droll style is perfect
for this tale of trickery and credulity."
--"Financial Times"
"Hugely amusing [but also] dark and cautionary, a reminder of the
high price of gullibility and ignorance."
--Jonathan Yardley, "Washington Post Book World"
"A compelling slice of lurid Americana...fun to read."
--"Entertainment Weekly"
"Fascinating...Brock is gifted."
--Associated Press
"Pope Brock reaches into the past and captures an incredible
story...perceptive."
--"Chicago Sun-Times"
"An irresistible and wide-ranging slice of popular history."
--"The Seattle Times"
"If Hollywood hasn't already optioned [this], what's keeping
it?
--David Gates, "Newsweek
""Wonderful...a gripping narrative"
--"Nature
""A rollicking biography-at turns funny and horrifying, brimming
with wit, insight and who-knew facts."
--"Wichita Eagle"
"Wonderful American social history and lots of fun."
--"Kirkus Reviews"
"In this lively and absorbing biography, Brock deftly captures the
consummate snake-oil salesman and gifted entrepreneur John R.
Brinkley...recommended."
--"Library Journal"
"Brinkley's astonishing rise and fall story is told with wry good
humor in" Charlatan..."compelling."
--"The Times" (Acadiana, Louisiana)"
"
"Brock exploits the outlandishness of Brinkley's escapades to
brilliant comic effect."
--"Washington CEO
"
"This spellbinding saga of a once-famous medical man who left all
too many corpses in his wake is nothing short of spectacular.
Impeccably researched, smartly crafted, beautifully written, it's a
pure joy to read. And dealing, as it does, with eternal traits of
human greed and gullibility, this extraordinary book is timely as
well as timeless...A mesmerizing must-read, written by a writer of
exquisite talent...One is left with the kind of reaction one has
after reading a masterpiece."
--Heinz Kohler, Willard Long Thorp Professor of Economics, Emeritus
Amherst College
"Take the Duke and the King in "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,"
Roll them into one. Hand this creature a scalpel, a radio
microphone and the sweet-talking skills to get filthy rich hawking
a deadly implantation of goat sexual organs to gullible American
men- and women. Then set him about transforming American pop
culture in the 1920s and 30s. You have John R. Brinkley, a con
artist of leviathan proportions. Pope Brock's true-life account of
this comic-evil monster isnothing less than Twainian: a blend of
reportage, social history, portraiture and storytelling in the
gland--excuse me, in the grand tradition."
--Ron Powers, author of "Mark Twain: A Life"
"Come one, come all, to the fabulous, hilarious world of rheostatic
dynamizers, foot-powered breast enlargers, and goat-gland
transplants--the surreal province of one John Brinkley,
diploma-mill quack and flimflammer extraordinaire. With perfect
pitch story-telling and wonderfully stylish prose, Pope Brock gives
us a portrait of a master fraud as Brinkley works the
ballyhou-stoked pseudo-science of the Twenties and Thirties to take
in millions, while dodging ex-patients, the law, and the AMA. A
dazzling cast of walk-ons includes Sinclair Lewis, Eugene V. Debs,
a hypochondriacal H. L Mencken, Mussolini, and Sigmund Freud, not
to mention Nora, the Monkey Turned Woman. Stranger than fiction
doesn't really say it. This is a book you won't put down and a
story you'll never forget."
--James R. Gaines, author of "For Liberty and Glory: Washington,
LaFayette and Their Revolutions"
"Shocking and hilarious in equal measure, this is an extraordinary
story of greed, gullibility and goat-glands. In chronicling the
outrageous career of John R. Brinkley, king of the quack doctors,
Pope Brock has also written a cautionary tale for our own times -
about celebrity, mass-marketing, media power, political huckstering
and the dangerous allure of mumbo-jumbo. As irresistible as
Brinkley's snake-oil, and far more invigorating, "Charlatan" is an
instant classic."
--Francis Wheen, author of "How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World"
and "The Irresistable Con: The Bizarre Life of a Fraudulent
Genius"
"Astonishing...This masterfully told story of the world's most
dangerous quack and the medical sleuth who tracked him down is a
delight. Brock skilfully mines the narrow fissure between
cutting-edge medicine and outrageous quackery while plumbing the
depths of human credulity. His punchy, exuberant style is spot-on
perfect for this improbable tale of money, murder and menace."
--Wendy Moore, author of "The Knife Man: Blood, Body-Snatching and
the Birth of Modern Surgery
""Before 'The Mythbusters' put truth to the test on national
television (usually by blowing things up), and before the Amazing
Randi went on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson to expose
charlatans and frauds in front of millions, there was Morris
Fishbein, a quackbuster extraordinaire who relentlessly pursued the
greatest charlatan of the 1920s and 1930s, one Dr. John Brinkley,
huckster of quack cures and remedies, commercial hustler and
schemer, and in the end a cold-hearted murderer. Pope Brock's
gripping tale of fraud and flimflam is at once compelling and
disturbing--compelling because it's such a great read, disturbing
because it reveals the endless gullibility of human nature."
--Michael Shermer, Publisher of "Skeptic" magazine, monthly
columnist for "Scientific American," author of "Why People Believe
Weird Things, How We Believe, and Why Darwin Matters
"""Charlatan" is the fabulous tale of John R. Brinkley, notorious
purveyor of goat-gland flimflam, and unsung pioneer who changed the
face of American politics, mass media, popular taste,
and-yes--medicine."
--Joel Best, author of "Flavor of the Month: Why Smart People Fall
for Fads"
""Charlatan" is a serious work of history that reads like a novel.
It tells the story of the little-known Dr. John Brinkley and his
unquenchable thirst for fame and fortune. Along the way, however,
it paints a refreshingly unique and vivid portrait of America as it
struggled to maintain its Jacksonian faith in democracy at the same
time that it looked to the magic of scientific experts to find new
cures to old problems. Rarely has history been this fun,
fast-paced, or fulfilling."
--Steven M. Gillon, author of "Ten Days That Unexpectedly Changed
America"
"A fascinating look at one of America's most dangerous quacks and
the advertising and political maneuvering that sustained him. Must
reading for everyone who wants to understand the dark side of the
marketplace and the vulnerability of its victims."
--Stephen Barrett, M.D., Head, Quackwatch.org, author of "The
Health Robbers" "
"
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