Give anonymous offenders enough verbal rope and column inches, and they will hang themselves
    for you, every time.
           -Don Foster, Author Unknown

In a culture where your fifteen minutes of fame are immediately followed by a book deal, we are flooded with memoirs, but remarkably few are any good.  For the most part, our enjoyment of these books hinges almost exclusively on our interest in the event that propelled the author into the public spotlight, however briefly.  Don Foster is a Shakespeare scholar, Vassar professor, and literary sleuth, and his book, Author Unknown, is a glorious exception to this rule.

Though his name may be unfamiliar, many--at least the political junkies among us--will remember the dramatic moment when Mr. Foster unmasked Joe Klein as the man behind the nom de plume "Anonymous" and the author of Primary Colors.  Foster, at the behest of New York Magazine, had compared the text of the novel to the writings of a number of the most likely suspects and had found so many stylistic and linguistic similarities between the book and Klein's column--including heavy use of adverbs, hyper hyphenation, Capitalization of Concepts, an obsession with race and a certain uncomfortableness about sexual orientation issues--that he was able to confidently pronounce Klein the author.  Despite Klein's fearsome denials and some brief second thoughts, Foster stuck to his guns and eventually Klein was forced to acknowledge authorship, when handwriting samples also tied him to the manuscript.

This book contains plenty of fascinating details about the techniques Foster uses and the nitty gritty of the investigation, but the basics of the "Anonymous" caper are fairly well known, in at least general form, and, though this episode alone would probably suffice to sell the book, it is the other cases that Foster deals with that really make the book worthwhile.  He starts with the work that brought him to the attention of New York's editors, when as a graduate student he managed to use his investigatory skills to attribute a poem to William Shakespeare.  This story provides a truly sublime moment when, having submitted his dissertation to Oxford University Press as a book proposal, he was turned down and received instead two anonymous critiques of his work--apparently standard practice calls for scholars to read and judge submissions anonymously--wherein both authors stated that it is not possible to use only the internal evidence in written works to attribute authorship.  However, Foster then proceeded to compare the critiques to the writings of various prominent Shakespeare scholars and was able to discern precisely who had written them--perhaps predictably, neither expert saw the humor in this this, but the reader surely will.  Despite these early rejections, Foster was eventually credited with having discovered a new Shakespeare poem and write-ups in The New York Times and elsewhere established him as perhaps the first, certainly the leading, practitioner of literary forensics.

Later sections of the book deal with : his subsequent involvement in the JonBenet Ramsey and Unabomber cases; a demonstration that Thomas Pynchon was not the secret author behind a series of vituperative letters to the editor of Mendocino County, California newspapers, signed by Wanda Tinasky, the Fort Bragg Bag Lady; a tantalizing rumination on who may have really written the infamous "Talking Points" of Lewinsky fame; and a final chapter which pretty much demolishes the idea that Clement Moore wrote the beloved poem, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.  The Talking Points discussion is especially interesting, mostly because it remains such a galling mystery, particularly for those of us who wanted Bill Clinton led out of the White House in an orange jumper and handcuffs.  Foster is not able to pin the deed on a specific culprit, but does show conclusively that the memo was not the exclusive work of Monica and her pal, Linda Tripp, and points at clues in the language and legal sophistication of at least the first page of the memo that seem to indicate it was most likely the work of one of a handful of lawyers in the Clinton inner circle.  Recall that Clinton himself is a lawyer, but Foster does not pursue him directly, focussing instead on Bob Bennett, Bruce Lindsey and Vernon Jordan.   He is hindered here by not having access to much written work by these three men, but it would be fun to see what he could do with more evidence.

My only criticism, and it's a mild one, is that there's a little too much "gee has my life become hectic" and "what have I gotten myself into."  This is self indulgent, almost self pitying, and is at odds with the genuine excitement he obviously brings to his work.  He does such a good job getting us caught up in the thrill of the chase that his complaints about the hectic lifestyle the work entails fall on deaf ears.  These quibbles aside, the book was one of the more pleasant surprises to come over the transom here in quite awhile.  This one is highly recommended.

(Reviewed:03-Nov-00)

Grade: (A) Orrin C. Judd

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