The Hoax

De: Clifford Irving

Narrado por: Joe Barrett

Novelist Clifford Irving's "autobiography" of Howard Hughes was the literary hoax of our time. This no-holds-barred confession by the author was first published in Great Britain in 1997, where it became a best seller. But no American publisher would touch it until now. Why? The answer is implicit in this ultimate caper story of daring, treachery, and corruption.

As fast-paced and exciting as any spy novel, The Hoax involves the listener at every devilish turn. Irving describes how the hoax developed, like a Chinese puzzle, from its madcap beginning to the final startling confession, a witty and nail-biting story of international intrigue and beautiful women, of powerful corporate executives and jet-set rogues, of cover-ups and headlines.

©1972 Clifford Irving (P)2006 Blackstone Audiobooks

Good not great

An interesting story but too long and with too many details. You get lost in the minutiae. The reader was very good and does many voices well.

I thought the beginning insufferable

And it didn't get much better. Irving talks about his personal life for half the book. It is not interesting. There are a lot of characters which was a challenge for the narrator, but some of the accents are just grating and absurd. The woman who is the executive at Mc Graw hill sounds like the wildly gay wedding planner in the new version of "father of the bride".

However, that being said, it is just an amazing story that he was able to pull the wool over so many people's eyes.

His voice in the story

Love the book I will pass to other people. Clifford Irving is a very good writer. I look forward to another one.

a preposterously compelling story

great narration. the story kept me n the edge of my seat; the audacity of the hoax was highly entertaining.

Interesting, but Exhausting

There's no denying the hoax itself is incredibly entertaining, however the book is literally twice as long as it needs to be. Though very well written, the author (Clifford Irving) is so incredibly opportunistic, corrupt, and narcissistic, that he is often hard to bear. Though this whole book is purportedly about "coming clean" about an undeniable crime (Irving literally stole almost $1 million from his publisher) he would really rather blabber on in coma-inducing detail about how glamorous his life is, and what a ladies man he is - or was. Hey Cliff - we all want to know about Hughes and the fraud you perpetrated: not you!

Also, as another reviewer mentioned, the narration is usually strong, but laughably bad - and incredibly annoying - when attempting accents. A supposedly middle-aged Asian-American woman in New York is made to sound like some teenaged valley girl, Hughes himself is made out to be some hillbilly, etc. What was the guy thinking? Just like the book itself, the material is strong - so why resort to slapstick caricature voices?

Despite all the criticism, I still think this fascinating ruse is worth your time - if you have a lot of it!