Reviews/Interviews/Essays
Interview with Preet Bhahara, Stay Tuned with Preet (1-9-20)
How “The Irishman” Maligns my Stepfather, New York Times (1-3-20)
Interview with Bill Kristol, Conversations with Bill Kristol (1-1-20)
Review (with interview) by Errol Morris, Air Mail (12-28-19): “The book made me cry several times. It was a book about honor, a book about family, a book about guilt. . . . The book is fantastic. All of this labor history, the rise of the Mob and the fall of labor. . . . The ending of the book is sublime. For someone who loves ambiguity, one could never do better.”
Interview with Elizabeth Slattery, Heritage Foundation (12-19-19)
Interview With Eric Shawn, Fox News Radio (12-17-19)
Review by Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal (11-28-19): “For some of the real story [about the Hoffa disappearance], and for a great American tale in itself, you want to go to Jack Goldsmith’s book, “In Hoffa’s Shadow,” which came out earlier this year. It is some book.”
Are the Claims in the New Film ‘The Irishman’ True?, Lawfare (11-26-19)
Interview with Eric Shawn, Fox News (11-24-19)
Review by David Garrow, Washington Post (11-14-19): an “emotionally powerful and utterly compelling book.”
Interview with Jim Braude, Greater Boston (11-13-19)
Interview with Robert Wright (Part II), Bloggingheads (11-12-19)
Interview with Christopher Lydon, Open Source (11-7-19)
Interview with Robert Wright (Part I), Bloggingheads (11-4-19)
Interview with Michael Isikof and Dan Klaidman, Skullduggery (11-4-19)
Book Talk, Harvard Law School (10-31-19)
Review by James Rosen, Wall Street Journal (10-21-19): “Mr. Goldsmith has produced an unusual hybrid of confessional memoir and investigative history. … “In Hoffa’s Shadow” is compulsively readable, deeply affecting and truly groundbreaking in its re-examination of the Hoffa case. … [A] monumental achievement.”
Interview with Jon Ward, The Long Game (10-18-19)
Interview with Michael Smerconish, The Michael Smerconish Program (10-16-19)
Talk at Politics and Prose (10-15-19)
Interview with Christiane Amanpour, CNN (10-15-19)
Interview with Noah Feldman, Luminary (10-12-19)
Review by John McGinnis, Law and Liberty (10-11-19): “More than a memoir, a true crime narrative, or an analysis of the American labor movement, this book should be understood as a celebration of kinship and a modern example of Christian atonement.”
Jimmy Hoffa, My Stepfather, and Me, The Atlantic (10-7-19)
Interview with Benjamin Wittes, The Lawfare Podcast (10-5-19)
Interview With Brian Ross, Brian Ross Investigates (10-3-19)
Interview with Hugh Hewitt, The Hugh Hewitt Show (10-3-19)
Interview with Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette (10-2-19)
Interview with Dave Davies, Fresh Air (NPR) (10-1-19)
Jimmy Hoffa and “The Irishman”: A True Crime Story?, New York Review of Books (9-26-2019)
Review by Chris Nashawaty, New York Times (9-27-19): “Jack Goldsmith’s gripping hybrid of personal memoir and forensic procedural lands with the force of a sucker punch. … [Goldsmith’s] narrative is bolstered by the rare perspective of [his stepfather, Chuckie] O’Brien — someone who was not only on the inside, but who also walked into many rooms during his life expecting to find a plastic tarp on the carpet. … [O]ver the course of ‘In Hoffa’s Shadow,’ Goldsmith’s quest becomes less about solving a mystery than a meditation on the complicated and occasionally bittersweet love between fathers and sons. It turns out that sometimes the search for truth can be its own reward.”
Review by Seth Stern, Christian Science Monitor (9-24-19): “Goldsmith has produced a wonderful book about the complicated relationship between a deeply flawed stepfather and the adopted son he loved deeply and forgave unconditionally for casting him aside.”
Review by Jennifer Szalai, New York Times (9-24-19)― “The book’s pacing is steady and unrelenting, as Goldsmith toggles between his own careful narrative voice and Chuckie’s off-the-cuff wiseguy vernacular. … “In Hoffa’s Shadow” covers a lot of ground, but I was most struck by the frankness with which a buttoned-up Goldsmith writes about his stepfather.”
Heather Catillo, WXYZ Detroit (9-23-19)―“Seven years of research, looking at grand jury information, interview with original case agents, interview with the case agents who worked it through the nineties, … it’s a really fascinating read.”
Review by Hugh Hewitt, Washington Post (9-23-19)―”[T]he unlikeliest riveting read of the year … [R]eaders from all backgrounds and across entire political and economic spectra won’t be able to put it down.”
Kirkus Review (4-21-19)―”A dramatic reexamination of Jimmy Hoffa’s life and disappearance, presented by a legal scholar with a beguiling personal connection. … A darkly engaging account of an important, misunderstood epoch.”
Previews:
“In Hoffa’s Shadow is a masterpiece and a page-turner―I couldn’t put it down. Brilliant, suspenseful, and deeply moving, it offers a personal view of one of the greatest unsolved crimes in American history. At the same time, it offers startling insights into organized crime, the labor movement, and the surprising origins of today’s surveillance state. Beautifully written and full of unexpected turns, this book is gripping and revelatory from start to finish.” ―Amy Chua, professor at Yale Law School and author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations
“A thrilling, unputdownable story that takes on big subjects―injustice, love, loss, truth, power, murder―and addresses them in sentences of beauty and clarity informed by deep thought and feeling. Goldsmith, one of the finest minds of his generation, has told an insane tale with a storyteller’s flair. This is one of the best works of autobiography that I’ve read in a very, very long time.” ―Bill Buford, former fiction editor of The New Yorker and author of Heat and Among the Thugs
“I am one of the world’s experts on the July 30, 1975, murder of Jimmy Hoffa. And, now, Jack Goldsmith―with his brilliant research and beautiful writing style―comes along and tells me a whole bunch of things I never knew about that day. Satisfying his curiosity about his stepfather’s alleged role in the crime and through his own personal integrity, Goldsmith has advanced the state of evidence of this unsolved mystery, bringing us closer to a final resolution.” ―Dan E. Moldea, author of The Hoffa Wars
“Some people are born into stories and then live them out beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. That’s what happened to Jack Goldsmith, one of the era’s heroic jurists. His shadow life across fifty years with a mob-connected stepfather tells a larger and essential story about America. The century-long sweep of Goldsmith’s narrative brilliantly wraps Jimmy Hoffa, Bobby Kennedy, and Bush and Cheney―as well as long-awaited revelations about what happened to the Teamster King, and themes of class, corruption, meritocratic mendacity, workin’ man’s blues, prosecutorial perfidy, and the Mob―around a heart-song saga of Chuckie and Jack, a dad and son who search for love across the divides that have riven American. This is an extraordinary, muscular adventure story about what’s happened to our nation and what’s possible for its future. A must-read.” ―Ron Suskind, author of Life, Animated and The One Percent Doctrine
“This is an incredible story, plainly rebutting the clear understanding of many that Charles O’Brien drove Jimmy Hoffa to his death, and offering a profoundly beautiful recognition of the nature of paternal love. This book will make you weep, repeatedly, for the injustice, and for the love.” ―Lawrence Lessig, professor at Harvard Law School and author of They Don’t Represent Us and Republic, Lost
Events
Austin, TX, Texas Tribune Festival—Sept. 28, 2019
Washington, DC, Politics and Prose—Oct. 15, 2019
Cambridge, MA, Harvard Law School—October 30, 2019
Washington, DC, National Press Club Book Fair—Nov. 1, 2019
Wellesley, MA, Wellesley Authors On Stage—Nov. 5, 2019
Cambridge, MA, Harvard Bookstore—Nov. 8, 2019
Savannah, GA, Savannah Book Festival—Feb. 15, 2020