The cover of this book is a photograph of the author's prison ID.
It is on the cover because the author did the work to earn the right to tell the reader that institutions are capable of processing a person, issuing them a number, and being wrong about them — and that the reader's willingness to examine the documents in this book does not require any academic credential, only attention.
The book is written for my daughters. The ID is there because the record should be there.
— K. Jimenez
The back of the book
No prose. No agenda. Cold hard facts.
As if Bret Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk wrote a book with Jim Marrs and William Cooper, and Hunter Thompson edited it.
Ellis coldness. Palahniuk clarity. Thompson fury. Cooper urgency. Primary sources only.
Eight hundred years traced through the record. A vesting order from 1942. A CIA dispatch from 1967. A power of attorney from 1991. A due-diligence memo on the docket. A federal ethics filing signed under penalty of perjury. They are all there, in the footnotes, where anyone who wants to check can check.
Nobody cheers for the mascot. They cheer for the quarterback. This is a book about the quarterbacks — Apollo, Carlyle, JPMorgan, Palantir, BlackRock — and the play they've been running, regardless of which mascot is on the field.
Written for two daughters in Texas, by a man who spent time inside a building that gave him a number and was wrong about him. Written because the schools don't teach this material. Written because the documents are public, and they should stay that way.