Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs

A Journey Through the Deep State

De: Kerry Howley

Narrado por: Nikki Massoud

A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • A NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR • A VANITY FAIR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

“Riveting and darkly funny and in all senses of the word, unclassifiable.” – The New York Times

A wild, humane, and hilarious meditation on post-privacy America—from the acclaimed author of Thrown

Who are you? You are data about data. You are a map of connections—a culmination of everything you have ever posted, searched, emailed, liked, and followed. In this groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction, Kerry Howley investigates the curious implications of living in the age of the indelible. Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs tells the true story of intelligence specialist Reality Winner, a lone young woman who stuffs a state secret under her skirt and trusts the wrong people to help. After printing five pages of dangerous information she was never supposed to see, Winner finds herself at the mercy of forces more invasive than she could have possibly imagined.

Following Winner’s unlikely journey from rural Texas to a federal courtroom, Howley maps a hidden world, drawing in John Walker Lindh, Lady Gaga, Edward Snowden, a rescue dog named Outlaw Babyface Nelson, and a mother who will do whatever it takes to get her daughter out of jail. Howley’s subjects face a challenge new to history: they are imprisoned by their past selves, trapped for as long as the Internet endures. A soap opera set in the deep state, Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs is a free fall into a world where everything is recorded and nothing is sacred, from a singular writer unafraid to ask essential questions about the strangeness of modern life.

Well written and to the point

Crazy story(ies) that provide more context to what you may have read in the paper

Hard to follow

The book contains way too much information and details and it sometimes felt as if the author is passing through the information over as just information. Maybe this is done intentionally, but it made a less joyful reading experience as you are hanged there trying to guess the point the author wants to make: info is looked over by the government? People are data? Surveillance Capitalism? What is it.

Disappointing

A misleading title of a “tour of the deep state” that quickly detoured into the author’s interest in Reality Winner. Good performance by the narrator, but I otherwise lost interest.

Kerry howley is a genius

Kerry howley is so smart and this book is so good and expansive and readable

Really good - But Too Much Focus on Reality Winner

The first half of the book is quite good bouncing around from whistle-blower to whistle-blower and I enjoy the style of writing. As fascinated initially I was with Reality Winners story, the trial was too drawn out. Reality is not inherently more interesting than any other subject, arguably less interesting. Early when discussing Reality Kerry succinctly describes the reason for Realitys persona seemingly a bit rife with contradiction. It is a mark of many other military whistle-blowers- they were not raised by standard middle class intellectuals and don't get a lot of the concepts there in, then their naivety leads to an awakening that results in whistleblowing. Kerry never investigates the specific contradictions contained in Reality further than that. To focus on Realities boring trial lends a girl boss air to the book which should be too self aware for such things. One can't help but feel the focus on an almost middle class white girl is author insertion in a very typical way. Realities story in no way deserves the extra attention receives if the attention is merely on the logistics of the trial and not a philosophical discussion with her as the subject. Why not focus on the contradiction of her aiding in the killing of many innocent people with her intense affinity for helping others and charity work? The first half of the hook leads you to think the threads of the whistle-blower will be tied together more meaningfully than they are, making the product feel unfinished but with good potential, potential it's too late to come to fruition now of course.

Amazing.

I was enthralled from beginning to end. Kerry Howley is a fantastic writer. This book is not only engaging and deeply interesting but important in this day and age.

Great listen

Really like the inside view on how Reality was treated worst than a career criminal. Yes she did leak a “ secret” document but at what harm. Thank for a great book

Deep state more

The storyline all mashed up together but would have wished a little more in the deep state and not just the characters that got swallowed by it.

I hardly expected this. ***** for Reality more horrible than fiction.

More surveillance than the Deep Dtate can process and severe overreactions of the Deep State to protect itself. I wish they would dial it back. Such a waste of people and resources. Poor Reality Winner.

So compelling and smart!

I’d like to think I stay up on the news, but this book clearly told me I don’t. It was beautifully written, so smart, and let me make my own conclusions. Brilliant!