also w/r/t literary merit it weirdly reminded me of the nick tosches bio of dean martin, where it takes a central subject (mcveigh in this case) who is just a total black hole, an unknowable void of contradictions, and builds a book out of everything surrounding him to explain capital-A America.

Facing a delay in processing the visa, Oswald headed to Dallas where he rented a room under the name "O. you would think coming out on this tiny conspiracy-minded publisher would mean there’s some interesting stuff among a lot of crank stuff (kind of how i found sinister forces) but it’s very sober and never advances any wacky conclusions, it just puts the pieces out there and lets you interpret them for yourself. As a child, Kaczynski was often sick and frequently hospitalized for various ailments including recurring hives. There could be a great thesis here, but you have to find it in the wall of data and multiple theories.

Kaczynski's brother said that, prior to his participation in the test, his brother had been emotionally stable.

it's tightly structured, gradually and meticulously unspooling the events at hand, but also stuffed with lengthy-but-necessary digressions. i guarantee there is far less ‘misinformation’ in this book than in tons of mainstream books about trump/russia, iraq etc. When he was arrested for repeated truancy in the 7th grade, the juvenile psychiatrist who evaluated him reported that Oswald was absorbed within a "vivid fantasy life, turning around the topics of omnipotence and power, through which [he] tries to compensate for his present shortcomings and frustrations.Two years later, he resigned from his teaching position and moved to his cabin in Montana where, in 1978 he began his bombing campaign.