Fall
Winner of the Costa Biography Award 2021
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Fall
Narrated by:
Simon Bubb
Buy Now for £12.99
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Narrated by:
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Simon Bubb
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By:
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John Preston
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
WINNER OF THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD 2021
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2021
A SUNDAY TIMES AND TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR
A dramatic, gripping account of the rise and fall of the notorious business tycoon Robert Maxwell from the acclaimed author of A Very English Scandal.
Robert Maxwell was a very British success. Born an Orthodox Jew, he escaped the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, fought in the Second World War, and was decorated for his heroism with the Military Cross. He went on to become a Labour MP and an astonishingly successful businessman, owning a number of newspapers and publishing companies. But after his dead body was discovered floating in waters around his superyacht, his empire fell apart as long-hidden debts and unscrupulous dealings came to light. Within a few days, Maxwell was being reviled as the embodiment of greed and corruption.
What went so wrong? How did a man who had once laid such store on the importance of ethics and good behaviour become reduced to a bloated, amoral wreck? In this gripping book, John Preston delivers the definitive account of Maxwell's extraordinary rise and scandalous fall.
'I have a shelf full of books about frauds, but this one is by far the most enjoyable' Craig Brown, author of Ma'am Darling
'The best biography yet of the media magnate Robert Maxwell - by turns engrossing, amusing and appalling' Robert Harris, Sunday Times
'Electrifying... the supreme chronicler of modern British scandals' Mail on Sunday
© John Preston 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021
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Critic reviews
'This is the best biography yet of the media magnate Robert Maxwell - by turns engrossing, amusing and appalling... it slips down as richly, easily and pleasurably as a tablespoonful of Beluga caviar' (Robert Harris)
'Electrifying... the supreme chronicler of modern British scandals'
'This is such a richly detailed, well-written, gripping biography I wished it could have been twice as long' (Lynn Barber)
'I have a shelf full of books about frauds, but this one is by far the most enjoyable. By turns self-righteous and revolting, Maxwell makes the perfect villain' (Craig Brown)
'Any good biography of a mountebank depicts not only its subject but also the ambivalent society that accommodated the monster. John Preston's Fall does this with deft understatement ... Preston's A Very English Scandal used an almost novelistic eye to revive a well-worn scandal. Fall is equally satisfying' (Quentin Letts)
'An absorbing profile of the war hero turned rogue ... Preston comes to his subject with the advantage both of hindsight and his great skill at exposing hypocrisy and subterfuge ... he has an eye for the telling detail and an ear for the revealing quote'
'There have been many books written about Robert Maxwell, but surely none as pacy, entertaining and jaw-dropping as this one... yes, this is quite a book'
'Preston has written a wonderfully entertaining book and interviewed almost everyone who crossed Maxwell's path in his heyday. He has an eye for comedy and drama and, where he explains his subject's shady and dauntingly complex business dealings, he does so clearly and succinctly'
'Irresistible page-turning pace ... what emerges from Fall is a vividly grotesque picture of the emperor showing off his nonexistent new clothes to an applauding crowd of courtiers - politicians, editors, bankers - who all too willingly suspended any disbelief they may have felt' (Francis Wheen)
'John Preston's book Fall, a recounting of the life of one of the most extraordinary figures in British corporate life, is timely ... almost 30 years since Maxwell died at sea in unexplained circumstances, it is possible to look back on his story and the fraud as a great, sweeping whole, a bridge from the second world war to the last years of the media barons before the internet began ... Preston tells the story well ... its strength is in telling the grand sweep of an extraordinary life'
Utterly compelling
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Love it- flagging edit error
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The rise and fall of this self-made Emperor has the trajectory of a Greek tragic hero. Preston has produced a staggering epic, extremely well researched and crisply written (with some enjoyable wryness) detailing Maxwell’s gigantic all-consuming ambition and arrogance, the pinnacles of his achievements, the fawning global adulation in which he luxuriated – and the depths of his fall and disgrace.
Maxwell’s talents were extraordinary. Born Ludovic Hoch in Ruthenia (now Ukraine) into a family of nine, to poor Jewish parents (a mother who adored him and a father who beat him until he vomited), he embarked on his life of re-invention. Awarded the Military Cross despite having without compunction shot dead German prisoners who had surrendered during the war, he escaped the slaughter of Jews in his homeland and married ‘out’: his loyal wife Elizabeth with whom he re-created the family to replace the one he had lost. He lost two children, as had his mother, and through his brutal emotional bullying severely damaged his remaining seven. His gargantuan appetite for wealth and status was matched by that for food (perhaps a hangover from his seriously hungry childhood) which drove him to consume enormous amounts (once ordering a Chinese takeaway for 14 for himself and a colleague), and to stuff night feasts into his mouth with his hands scattering remains on the floor. (Special equipment used for horses had to be used to retrieve his bloated 22 stone body from the sea after his death).
His intelligence was never in doubt (he could pun in five languages and was fluent in over ten); he was spellbindingly charismatic and could be jovial and charming, but his personality became increasingly manic and dangerous over the years. There were obsessions (his passion for his young assistant Andrea Martin); his crazy unpredictability; his obscene displays of unfounded wealth at his parties (David Frost brought a £500 bottle of wine as a party gift); his destructive guilt at having survived the Holocaust and married a non-Jewish woman – and yet only Rupert Murdoch saw him for what he was. Peter Jay continued to work for him even though he thought him ‘pre-moral’ without any sense of evil and wrong.
His death remains a mystery – was it murder, accident or suicide? The arguments fully set out by Preston are riveting with no definitive answer.
This is a terrible and brilliant fable for our times
A 'pre-moral' monster
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The book reads like a novel by Trollop, but it is truth not fiction. We see a war hero who may well also have been a war criminal. A successful publisher and fabulously rich businessman who was also a thief and but for his sudden death, would have been imprisoned for fraud on a grand scale.
It is a portrait of a soft skinned egotist and bully worthy of Trump. A man of principals but also dreadful dishonestly and corruption. A man with a large family, who surrounded himself with sycophants and admirers yet died friendless and alone.
This is a wonderfully written biography in either print or audiobook form.
A review of an extraordinary life
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Insightful
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