About this item
A major new work, a hybrid of history, journalism, and memoir, about the modern Freedom of Information Act - FOIA - and the horrifying, decades-old government misdeeds that it is unable to demystify, from one of America's most celebrated writersTen years into researching a book about the possibility that the United States had used biological weapons in the Korean War, Nicholson Baker was frustrated and disheartened. In the course of his research, he had become deeply disillusioned with the process of FOIA requests. He has been forced to wait years in some cases, while other requests have been answered only with documents rendered inscrutable, or even illegible, by copious redactions. Rather than wait forever, with his head full of secrets about government atrocities committed by his own country, Baker sets out to keep a personal journal of his obstructed research instead.
About the Author
I've written sixteen books, plus an art book (The World on Sunday) that I published with my wife Margaret Brentano. The most recent one is Substitute (2016) , which is about working as a substitute teacher in Maine schools. Some earlier books are The Anthologist (2009) , a novel about a poet trying to write an introduction to an anthology of rhyming verse; Human Smoke (2008) , a book of nonfiction about the beginning of World War II, and U and I (1991) , about the vagaries and jealousies of the writing life. My first novel, The Mezzanine, about a man riding an escalator on his lunch hour, came out in 1988. Occasionally I write for magazines. I grew up in Rochester, New York and went to Haverford College, where I majored in English. I live in Maine with my family.