Book Preview: Unreasonable Men

Pub Date - October 12, 2009

In Unreasonable Men, author Paul David Pope presents the unvarnished, often shocking truth about his grandfather, Generoso Pope, a 15-year-old impoverished Italian immigrant who became a millionaire and influential power-broker by the time he was thirty; and Paul's father, Gene Pope, who despite being cast adrift by the family went on to found the tabloid National Enquirer. (back blurb)

Meh. I wasn't all that impressed with what I read in the teaser. It's another pseudo-MAFIA type of story except this guy wasn't MAFIA. He's just a hanger-on that used them when it benefited him and dropped them when he was done. Not the wisest of moves, really, but the guy doesn't have anything to worry about now.

It's the guy's grandson telling the story and the writing shows it. It doesn't look to me like the author's a fine-tuned author but a guy that wrote a book about his family and it happened to be interesting enough for someone to buy. I think in the hands of an experienced writer who could drop some grime and grit onto the story, it would have been awesome to read. But it kinds of reads like that uncle of yours babbling on about some story or other at the dinner table that you only half listen to. Yeah it's interesting but it could be better.

I snagged this at BEA because the history interested me but this sample pamphlet was enough for me. It basically tells the entire story but it leaves out the bulk of the meat. If I already know what happens, why would I want to read the book? It's just . . . meh. I'm good. I'll leave the book to someone else.