JOEL WHITNEY's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Baffler, New York Magazine, and The Sun, among others. His essays have twice been designated as Notable in Best American Essays, and he received a 2017 PEN/Nora Magid Award for Editing for his work on Guernica, which he co-founded. For his poetry, which has appeared in The Paris Review, The Nation, and Agni, he is a recipient of the Discovery Prize awarded by the 92nd Street Y and The Nation. He lives in Brooklyn, where he is at work on a novel.
Praise for Finks Another odd episode steps out from the Cold War's shadows. Riveting. --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Listen to this book, because it talks in a very clear way about what has been silenced. --John Berger, author of Ways of Seeing and winner of the Man Booker Prize With Finks, Joel Whitney vividly brings to life the early days of the Cold War, when key American literary figures were willing to secretly do the bidding of the nation's spymasters. --James Risen, author of Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War A deep look at that scoundrel time when America's most sophisticated and enlightened literati eagerly collaborated with our growing national security state. Finks is a timely moral reckoning. --David Talbot, founder of Salon and author of The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA and the Rise of America's Secret Government An illuminating read and a cautionary tale about the potential costs--political and artistic--of accommodating power.--Ben Wizner, ACLU Director of Speech, Privacy and Technology Project