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American Con Artist American Sophomore American Author
American Con Artist (Part I)
American Sophomore (Part II)
American Sophomore is a biographical novella about James Hogue, the runner, conman and prisoner – partly inspired by Geoffrey Wolff’s biography The Duke of Deception (1979), articles I read in The New Yorker in recent years and my own experience as a marathon runner.
Told in the first person, we learn directly about this real-life conman who tricked his way into Princeton University under a false identity. The remarkable thing about Hogue was that he was talented as a runner. But his expectations for himself were so high that he kept on desiring his life to reach higher levels of perfection. This compulsion led to Hogue assuming various false identities and casting himself frequently as younger than he was – all to reach a pinnacle of physical and intellectual self-esteem. I will aim to begin Hogue’s story while I continue work on The Murderess and the Hangman.
The novel is entitled American Sophomore because of Hogue’s penchant for returning to schools (again and again) in order to fulfill his running fantasy. We all want second chances…especially in American lives.
American Author (Part III)
