American Animals: A True Crime Memoir

by Eric Borsuk

Overview

AS SEEN IN THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE

“One of the most esoteric and far-fetched crimes in21st-century annals.”
—The Hollywood Reporter

“A rare book heist that Danny Ocean may have applauded—except for one mistake.”
—Vanity Fair

“A tragicomedy of errors.”
—Salon

“They are the young people, the people with the idealism, the passion, the courage to do something interesting with their lives: an act of daring almost artistic in its originality. They are almost right.”
—The Guardian

“One of the biggest art heists in FBI history.”
—The Times of London

American Animals is a coming-of-age crime memoir centered around three childhood friends: Warren, Spencer, and Eric. Disillusioned with freshman year of college and determined to escape from their mundane Middle-American existences, the three hatch a plan to steal millions of dollars’ worth of artwork and rare manuscripts from a university museum. The story that unfolds is a gripping adventure of teenage rebellion, from page-turning meetings with black-market art dealers in Amsterdam to the opulent galleries of Christie’s auction house in Rockefeller Center. American Animals ushers the reader along a gut-wrenching ride of adolescent self-destruction. Providing a front-row seat to the inception, planning, and execution of the heist, while offering a rare glimpse into the evolution of a crime—all narrated by one of the perpetrators in a darkly comic, action-packed, true-crime caper.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684424511
Publisher:	TURNER PUB CO
Publication date:	03/31/2020
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

Eric Borsuk is the author of American Animals, the memoir featured in the acclaimed motion picture of the same name. His work has appeared in such publications as VICE Magazine and The Marshall Project. He currently lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

01/27/2020

As a child, Borsuk wanted to be an FBI agent. He wound up becoming a criminal instead, as shown in this diverting novelistic memoir. One day in 2004 at Kentucky’s Transylvania University, Warren, a childhood friend of Borsuk who’s an avid birder and, like Borsuk, into drugs, persuades Borsuk to join him and another drug-using friend, Spencer, in stealing Audubon’s multivolume Birds of America and some other rarities from the university’s rare book room. Warren says he has a dealer in Amsterdam willing to pay $10 million for the Audubon set. The three teens bail on their first attempt, which includes laughable disguises, but on the second try, sans disguises, they tase the librarian, grab the oversized volumes, and stuff some rare prints into their backpacks. When they’re spotted fleeing, they drop the large Audubon books and hightail it. They later take the prints to Christie’s in New York City for an appraisal, but that deal is aborted after Spencer foolishly leaves his real cell phone number with a Christie’s representative. More drug-fueled crimes—car surfing and shoplifting—ensue before federal agents burst into their house, arrest the boys, and reclaim the artwork from a marijuana-filled basement. That’s where the book ends, but later they each spent seven years in prison. Borsuk smoothly combines humor with the ennui of being a truly lost boy. This is a must for fans of the 2018 movie of the same name based on this story. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

One of the most esoteric and far-fetched crimes in 21st-century annals.”
—The Hollywood Reporter

“A rare book heist that Danny Ocean may have applauded—except for one mistake.”
—Vanity Fair

“A tragicomedy of errors.”
—Salon

“They are the young people, the people with the idealism, the passion, the courage to do something interesting with their lives: an act of daring almost artistic in its originality. They are almost right.”
—The Guardian

“One of the biggest art heists in FBI history.”
—The Times of London

From the Publisher

2019-12-01
A portrait of the writer as a hapless criminal.

Borsuk's decent command of his material is at odds with the protagonist's cluelessness, which itself seems odd because the author and protagonist are one and the same. The narrative gives no indication of the distance between the two, only that the events described took place when the author was 19, on the verge of dropping out of college, and hanging out with two friends who had become even less anchored than he was. Their house served as a central gathering place and crash pad, where Warren (no last names) liked to get naked when the party was in full swing. Amid the alcohol-and-pot-induced haze, Warren enlisted the author and their other friend, Spencer, to steal rare books and artwork from a university library. Paranoid from the pot, Spencer believed Warren and the author were planning to murder him. In terms of pacing and character development, the author is mostly in control of these out-of-control conspirators. Warren, we learn, is "a weasel-like creature, agile, hard to pin down," something of a scam artist, who may or may not have been responsible for some of Borsuk's disappearing funds. The author had long planned to join the FBI, as his uncle had, until college, when he "suddenly found myself on the opposite side of the law, immersed in a life of crime for no apparent reason." Judging by the narrative, a tie-in to the film of the same name, Borsuk didn't even believe it as he was immersed in it, helping plot a robbery that he didn't think would happen. Then he found himself doing what he thought he never would, tying up an elderly librarian, whose screams continue to haunt him, as they made their escape from the library. The caper fell apart, and so does the narrative, as the three try to figure out what comes next.

If the story sounds appealing, go see the movie.

Kirkus Reviews