Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs Audiobook By Kerry Howley cover art

Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs

A Journey Through the Deep State

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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. Freedom & Security Intelligence & Espionage Literary History & Criticism Political Science Politics & Government Technology Science & Technology Witty Women Funny Biographies & Memoirs Professionals & Academics
Excellent Analysis • Engaging Content • Expansive Information • Philosophical Discussion • Smart Writing

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

Well written and to the point

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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.

Hard to follow

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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.

Disappointing

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

Kerry howley is a genius

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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.

Really good - But Too Much Focus on Reality Winner

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