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David Samuels
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The Runner: A True Account of the Amazing Lies and Fantastical Adventures of the Ivy League Impostor James Hogue Hardcover – April 8, 2008

by David Samuels (Author)
3.6 3.6 out of 5 stars 52 ratings
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A classic american story of a homeless drifter who tries to start a new life by applying to Princeton University, based on the acclaimed New Yorker article.

Based on one of the most talked-about New Yorker articles from the past decade—soon to be a major motion picture.

On the morning of March 30, 1988, a police detective named Matt Jacobson arrived at a storage facility in St. George, Utah, with a warrant to search for stolen bicycles. Among the stolen goods and dusty athletic trophies in Locker 100, Jacobson also found some recent correspondence showing that the thief, James Hogue, had been dreaming of a new and better life as a person named Alexi Santana—a self-educated Nevada cowboy who could run a mile in just over four minutes and had applied for admission to some of America's finest universities, including Stanford, Princeton, and Brown.

Thus began a classic American narrative of self-invention that falls somewhere between The Great Gatsby and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Hogue's story—how he fooled the Princeton University admissions department, got straight A's, made the Princeton track team, dated a millionaire's daughter, and was accepted into the elite Ivy Club before his deception was finally exposed—turns out to be both an intensely affecting profile of a dreamer and the limits of his dream, and a striking indictment of the Ivy League "meritocracy" to which Hogue wanted so badly to belong.

Taking off from his widely read New Yorker article, David Samuels adds substantial new reporting, telling the sad story of Hogue's itinerant life after he was expelled from Princeton and providing fascinating new insights into the Ivy League's most famous impostor.
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  1. Print length
    192 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    New Press
  4. Publication date
    April 8, 2008
  5. Dimensions
    5.96 x 0.87 x 8.44 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    159558188X
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1595581884
  8. See all details
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The Amazon Book Review
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this extended riff on Samuels's New Yorker article of the same name, the author pursues James Hogue, portrayed as a cunning, intelligent drifter who at age 28, in 1988, created a new identity for himself as Alexi Santana, a 16-year-old cowboy, who became the Princeton University admissions committee's darling. Santana's Princeton matriculation was delayed because, unbeknownst to school authorities, Hogue was doing time for bicycle theft. One year later, Santana, a talented runner, entered the school without a hitch until a track meet spectator outed the impostor during his sophomore year. Though Samuels has a gift for contextualizing people and events, he misses his mark in this repetitive and fragmented profile. He is so taken by his elusive subject, whom he calls a convicted fabulist, that he lets Hogue, a compulsive liar and criminal with repeated offenses, off the hook far too easily. To Samuels, Hogue's behavior is as harmless as the youthful lies the author formerly told strangers on airplanes. But the lie and the con are not one and the same, and the reader winces as Hogue cons his way past Samuels's otherwise intelligent grasp. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

A dizzying, exhilerating tale of deception,duplicity and the search for personal identity. -- Kirkus Reviews

Engaging and detailed...reveals a truly complex figure who is driven, intelligent, incredibly well-read, deceitful, arrogant, scrappy, athletic. -- Playboy.com, Sam Jemielity

Haunting...Samuels succeeds in showing a man who's not really sure if he even exists. -- Los Angeles Times, Richard Rayner

Samuels is an elite narrative journalist, a master at teasing out the social and moral implications of the smallest small talk. -- The New York Times Book Review, Keith Gessen

Terse, passionate, and complicated. -- The Village Voice, James Hannaham

The grace with which Samuels unravels [a] complex character...testifies to the author's reputation as a beloved heir to the New Journalists of the 1960s. -- Time Out New York, Nicole Tourtelot

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ New Press (April 8, 2008)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 159558188X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1595581884
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.5 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.96 x 0.87 x 8.44 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.6 3.6 out of 5 stars 52 ratings

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David Samuels

David Samuels

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Customer reviews

3.6 out of 5 stars
52 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Allen Chen
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2017
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Loved it, great book.
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Albert
4.0 out of 5 stars Good read
Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2013
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Bought this book for my class and it was a good read. IF anyone love story about true stories and how a simple guy tricked a top school in the United States you most read this book.
One person found this helpful
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MZ
3.0 out of 5 stars Needs less rumination
Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2011
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I love David Samuels's writing and had looked forward to a book-length piece, having enjoyed his essay collection Only Love Can Break Your Heart. His writing is expressive and interesting, just colloquial enough to make you feel friendly toward him; and his subject matter is almost always something that you want to know about. This book is about a con man and drifter named James Hogue, who passed himself off as a self-educated ranch hand who "read Plato under the stars" and was a world-class runner.
Under this false identity, Hogue managed to get himself admitted to Princeton where he attended for two years--after serving a year in jail for theft, unbeknownst to the hapless admissions department, who unaccountably idolized this fictional applicant. Hogue was recognized and outed at a track meet--he really was a good runner, about the only real fact about him--and returned to prison. The fact that he was ten or fifteen years older than his fellow students, kept mostly to himself, and exhibited other strange anomalies didn't raise an eyebrow. The Ivy League insiders who championed Hogue and fell for his made-up biography--swooned over it in fact--come off as incredible dupes.
Samuels explains their foolish mistake by pointing out that the Ivy League needs just the type of "diversity" Hogue offered up, in order to dilute the perception that most of their students are elite insiders by birthright. Every one of the elite universities has an unwritten quota of deserving minority admissions--students who get accepted on the strength of their grades, creativity, and genuine hard work; and they were all too happy to include this person with the Euro-Hispanic name Alexi Idris-Santana.
Samuels tells the story well, and I enjoyed some of his ruminations on the nature of identity, truth, and man's relationship to his world, but they became a little tiresome. I wanted more plot and a bit less theory. Samuels himself attended the Ivy Leagues and it's nice to hear a real insider expose the, after all, shoddy practices by which the elite pass on their elitism to their offspring regardless of merit while keeping up the appearance of fairness.
One person found this helpful
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Jaxon
1.0 out of 5 stars Not worth reading
Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2009
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A book not worth reading. Poorly written. The book seemed to me to be more about the author than James Hogue. Couldn't even include a photo of the subject !
4 people found this helpful
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Catherine
4.0 out of 5 stars Good
Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2013
Verified Purchase
I received it and was pleased to know that the details i read were correct. I'm glad I received it on time.
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Justine Krell
2.0 out of 5 stars THe runner
Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2008
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Was not an overwhelming book, to say the least. But then again, it is supposed to chronicle the true tales of Hogue. THe author has a bit of a disjointed writing style; there are a few times where you question the relevance of a passage. So sad that Hogue apparently does have the brains, the drive, and the talent to have a great life; too bad he didn't capitalize on his potential in an honest way.
3 people found this helpful
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J. M. Scott
3.0 out of 5 stars "...ability to tolerate guilt."
Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2010
The backcover description is misleading by stating that a teenage drifter and thief wakes up one morning applies,and is accepted to Princeton, leading me to think it would be a feel-good tale of the oft misunderstood teenager. Instead, Mr. Samuel's biography of James Hogue is scattered and full of conjecture, about a man who had a "normal" midwestern adolescence. Both chapters and paragraphs introduce multiple ideas rather than clarify one idea at a time. Perhaps the writing itself was trying to represent Hogue's life; unknown,false,and misleading information. I wonder if the Mr. Samuals writing career wasn't built with ivy-covered bricks rather than stones laboriously broken free from his own quarry.
Two interesting concepts brought up, but not well supported, are lying-whether it is right or wrong-and the American Dream of becoming whatever(whoever) you want. Samuals starts to jog with these ideas and then lets them fall flat. Both would have been excellant topics of discussion for such a scholar as Mr. Hogue.
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