The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos

by Mark Chiusano

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

George Santos is one of the more unqiue characters of our generation, and here we have an immensely entertaining round-up of all the things he is. It's bizarre, hilarious, troubling and it's incredibly well told from the much-celebrated Mark Chiusano.

From the dogged Long Island reporter who has been on his trail since 2019, the bizarre, page-turning, and frankly hysterical story of America’s most outrageous grifter—former US Representative George Santos.

America has grown used to larger-than-life politicians: Teflon Don, AOC, MTG, Dark Brandon, and all the rest have injected DC politics with an unmistakable edge of celebrity flair and tabloid intrigue. Yet in 2022, a new player on the national scene outshone them all. George Anthony Devolder Santos, and his revolving door of pseudonyms, shed glaring new light on how far we’d all let our politics slide as his claimed resume was shred to bits in the wake of a longshot run to office from New York’s 3rd Congressional District.

From Wall Street gigs to an amateur volleyball career, from embellished claims of Jewish heritage to a fabricated 9/11 story involving his mother’s death, Santos’s legend continued to grow as his web of lies evaporated in real time. And the only thing wilder than this charlatan embedding himself in the warm, consequence-evading arms of our nation’s capital was the Queens con artist’s refusal to bow his head in shame.

Newsday alum and PEN/Hemingway honoree Mark Chiusano tells the full (well, as full as can be given the subject) story of Santos here for the first time. From humble years spent in Brazil, to glamorous nights on the west side of Manhattan, to the stunning small-time scams employed to ease his slippery climb up the American society ladder, The Fabulist tells a story you’ll have to read for yourself to believe…and even then, it’s George Santos, so who’s to say for sure.

Combining the very best of boots-on-the-ground journalism, dishy backroom dealings, and glittery details about Gold Coast mansions and bodice-baring drag shows that’d feel just as at home in your next summer beach read, The Fabulist is truly stranger than fiction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781668043677
Publisher:	Atria/One Signal Publishers
Publication date:	11/28/2023
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	104,413
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 2.20(d)

About the Author

Mark Chiusano started covering George Santos in 2019 as a columnist and editorial writer at Newsday. His story collection Marine Park received a PEN/Hemingway Award honorable mention in 2015. His writing has appeared in places like The Atlantic, Time, The Paris Review, McSweeney’s, The Drift, and Guernica, and he teaches at CUNY City Tech. He lives in his native Brooklyn with his wife and daughter.

Editorial Reviews

12/18/2023

The deceits, frauds, and unlikely triumphs of the Republican congressman from New York are untangled in this labyrinthine exposé. Journalist Chiusano (Marine Park) explores the gap between Santos’s public image during his 2022 congressional campaign as a Wall Street highflier from a wealthy family with Jewish ancestry—none of which was true—and his reality as the son of working-class Brazilian immigrants in Queens. Chiusano’s colorful portrait of Santos’s early career is a tapestry of petty rackets, including check fraud charges in Brazil, a probable green-card marriage, and a charitable scam called Friends of Pets United (Santos allegedly set up a Go Fund Me page to fund cancer surgery for a homeless veteran’s dog, then pocketed the $3,000 he raised and let the pooch die). Pandering to MAGA diehards as a congressional candidate, Santos generated a flood of campaign funds that he skimmed with the help of shady accounting. The exposure of his frauds after his election victory, rather than ruining him, proved an apotheosis, Chiusano contends: Santos became a folk hero of sorts for shamelessly lying his way to the top of what is widely perceived as an intrinsically dishonest profession. Combining punchy reportage with thoughtful analysis, Chiusano’s richly textured profile makes Santos into a fitting embodiment of today’s declining public faith in politics. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

2023-11-03
Mr. Ripley goes to Washington.

George Santos is consistent only in his pathological lying. To call him a “fabulist” is to denature the criminal enterprise that, this account amply reveals, motivates Santos’ every waking moment. Much of what we know about Santos owes to Newsday writer Chiusano’s dogged reporting, and the story isn’t pretty. Santos, who logged time in Brazil as a drag artist and check forger, to say nothing of a leech given to bilking his own grandmother (“He did it with others, too. He’d find someone else to borrow money from, and then disappear”), eventually wound up on Long Island, where his lies took on ever more bizarre dimensions. From working as a sales rep for a cable TV service who constantly upsold customers, he concocted a role as a high-level financial wheeler-dealer. Based on his constituency, he “seemed to recognize that a Jewish backstory could be a political tool,” regardless of his true ethnicity. In the rise of Donald Trump, he “saw another Queens native with an outsider chip on his shoulder (warranted or not) who had no political experience but was bluffing and hustling his way to the White House anyway.” How did such an obvious grifter get ahead in street-smart New York? As if channeling Herman Melville’s novel The Confidence-Man, Chiusano suggests that America is a nation of wolves and sheep, where the wolves always win: Even though he’s now under criminal indictment, Santos now claims that his cons add up to “an experience, you know, for a book or something like that.” The author also vigorously criticizes the Democrats’ opposition research, which should have turned up Santos’ record and labyrinthine lies before he ever got close to winning his congressional seat.

In a well-researched book, Chiusano offers fair warning to anyone who might consider voting for his con man subject.

Kirkus Reviews

A lively account of Santos and his fall from grace. . . . Among the high points of its reporting, The Fabulist paints a picture of someone who really doesn’t know what survival means. . . . When the cameras go cold, Santos may find himself alone with the person he had always wished to avoid.”
—The New York Review of Books

"An engrossing look at Santos’s rise and crashing fall. With detail and wry humor, Chiusano fillets his subject. The Fabulist is an amalgam of dish and supporting receipts, an ideal stocking stuffer for political junkies and voyeurs. This is a book Santos never wanted published. Truly.”
—The Guardian

"Chiusano’s book offers not just a contextualization of [Santos's] deceptions but also a fuller, even compassionate story, a piecing together of a complex character. . . a comprehensive portrait of a grand fabricator and the society that created him."
—Newsday

"Aside from delivering an avalanche of bizarre new scooplets and anecdotes about the life and times of George Santos, the book does something that few have been able to do: It humanizes him. . . [painting] a complex portrait of a real human being who seems to lie as a way of life."
—Business Insider

“The deceits, frauds, and unlikely triumphs of the Republican congressman from New York are untangled in this labyrinthine exposé. . . . Combining punchy reportage with thoughtful analysis, Chiusano’s richly textured profile makes Santos into a fitting embodiment of today’s declining public faith in politics.”
—Publishers Weekly

"Chiusano’s book called out, siren-like, from the new books section of my local public library, and I succumbed. What I learned is that my idea of Santos had been much too charitable. [I]n Chiusano’s account, almost all of Santos’s life is vaporware. . . Santos’s saga really does mark something new in the annals of America’s Congress.”
—The Bulwark

"Dogged reporting. . . . As if channeling Herman Melville’s novel The Confidence-Man, Chiusano suggests that America is a nation of wolves and sheep, where the wolves always win. . . . In a well-researched book, Chiusano offers fair warning to anyone who might consider voting for his con man subject."
—Kirkus

"A fabulous, sizzling, and sometimes sassy book, excelling both as real-time reportage and an incisive review of the time and places that made the rise and fall of George Santos possible."
—OurTown

“An essential read for those seeking to understand the complex tapestry of truth and fabrication that defines the American political landscape in the age of George Santos. . . Chiusano’s work goes beyond the spectacle of Santos’s alleged misdeeds, and his insights into Santos’s psyche and the implications of his actions extend beyond mere political critique.”
—The Advocate

"Followers of politics and readers who've been watching the saga of George Santos will devour The Fabulist. If you love a good, romping head-shaker, pull this one off the shelves."
—Terri Schlichenmeyer, OutSFL

“A lively account of Santos and his fall from grace. . . . Among the high points of its reporting, The Fabulist paints a picture of someone who really doesn’t know what survival means. . . . When the cameras go cold, Santos may find himself alone with the person he had always wished to avoid.”
—The New York Review of Books

"An engrossing look at Santos’s rise and crashing fall. With detail and wry humor, Chiusano fillets his subject. The Fabulist is an amalgam of dish and supporting receipts, an ideal stocking stuffer for political junkies and voyeurs. This is a book Santos never wanted published. Truly.”
—The Guardian

"Chiusano’s book offers not just a contextualization of [Santos's] deceptions but also a fuller, even compassionate story, a piecing together of a complex character. . . a comprehensive portrait of a grand fabricator and the society that created him."
—Newsday

"Aside from delivering an avalanche of bizarre new scooplets and anecdotes about the life and times of George Santos, the book does something that few have been able to do: It humanizes him. . . [painting] a complex portrait of a real human being who seems to lie as a way of life."
—Business Insider

“The deceits, frauds, and unlikely triumphs of the Republican congressman from New York are untangled in this labyrinthine exposé. . . . Combining punchy reportage with thoughtful analysis, Chiusano’s richly textured profile makes Santos into a fitting embodiment of today’s declining public faith in politics.”
—Publishers Weekly

"Chiusano’s book called out, siren-like, from the new books section of my local public library, and I succumbed. What I learned is that my idea of Santos had been much too charitable. [I]n Chiusano’s account, almost all of Santos’s life is vaporware. . . Santos’s saga really does mark something new in the annals of America’s Congress.”
—The Bulwark

"Dogged reporting. . . . As if channeling Herman Melville’s novel The Confidence-Man, Chiusano suggests that America is a nation of wolves and sheep, where the wolves always win. . . . In a well-researched book, Chiusano offers fair warning to anyone who might consider voting for his con man subject."
—Kirkus

"A fabulous, sizzling, and sometimes sassy book, excelling both as real-time reportage and an incisive review of the time and places that made the rise and fall of George Santos possible."
—OurTown

“An essential read for those seeking to understand the complex tapestry of truth and fabrication that defines the American political landscape in the age of George Santos. . . Chiusano’s work goes beyond the spectacle of Santos’s alleged misdeeds, and his insights into Santos’s psyche and the implications of his actions extend beyond mere political critique.”
—The Advocate

"Followers of politics and readers who've been watching the saga of George Santos will devour The Fabulist. If you love a good, romping head-shaker, pull this one off the shelves."
—Terri Schlichenmeyer, OutSFL

From the Publisher