The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos
by Mark Chiusano
View on GoodreadsMark Chiusano's biography of George Santos — the congressman who fabricated essentially every biographical claim he ever made — built from years of Long Island reporting that preceded the national exposure.
Core ideas
- The Santos story is treated less as an individual psychological case than as a political-system failure: how did a candidate this fabricated get through party vetting, a campaign cycle, and a general election before anyone exposed him at scale?
- Local journalism caught the pattern early; the national press picked it up only after he'd been seated, which is a story about journalistic resource allocation as much as about Santos.
- The "very American legend" framing is operative — Santos is treated as continuous with a tradition of American self-invention, not a unique aberration.
Published2023
Pages320
ISBN9781668043677
ReadDec 2023
