Michael Hastings was a gifted, award-winning reporter for Newsweek and Rolling Stone before he tragically died in a car accident in Los Angeles in 2013.
The manuscript of The Last Magazine was discovered on his computer after his death. Fortunately, it has been published; unfortunately, it will be his last work of fiction.
In my opinion, journalists who attempt to write novels are typically not very good at it. That’s not the case here.
The Last Magazine is a compelling, hilarious, nasty, revealing, and rollicking ride through the last throes of a big-time magazine in the run-up to and first year of the Iraq War. I’m certain it would have been better if Hastings had had time to work with an editor, but it’s bursting with life, and you won’t want to put it down.
Two of my favorite characters, Nishant Patel and Sanders Berman, were reportedly based on well-known journalists Fareed Zakaria and Jon Meacham. Hastings paints them as men with gigantic egos who will do anything to get on television.
Hastings also wrote nonfiction, including I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern Love Story, about the death of his girlfriend, an aid worker, in an attack on her convoy. The publisher calls it “searing, unflinching, and revelatory.” His second book, The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan, examines the US presence in Afghanistan.
I love this line from I Lost My Love in Baghdad: “I’m glad you’re the one I get to leave the parties with.” RIP, Michael Hastings.
See The Last Magazine by Michael Hastings on Audiobooks, Amazon/Audible, and Bookstores who are not Amazon.
You might also enjoy Books Everyone Should Read and The Final Solution: A Story of Detection by Michael Chabon.
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