“Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters; The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire”, by Richard Hack

444 pages, Phoenix Books, ISBN-13: 978-1597775106

If the name “Richard Hack” seems at all familiar to you, or if you think you’ve heard of his book Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters; The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire, then it may be because it was released on September 11^th, 2001, and Hack was being interviewed live on the Today show by Matt Lauer when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center; Lauer consequently had to cut their interview short to report on the ongoing events, but the abrupt ending of their interview, and the early reports of the attack from the Today show, is now forever preserved on the internet, as well as at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York City, shown in a continuous loop.

Well then, with that out of the way… Judging from the interest in this self-described “definitive biography”, Howard Robard Hughes Jr., who died on April 5^th, 1976 at only 70 years old, remains an object of American fascination: Hughes’ downward spiral from wealthy, handsome playboy/pilot/film producer/media star to even wealthier barking-mad recluse has been told in numerous books and television programs, and Hack’s book is, I believe, the latest to tackle this fascinating and maddening person (although I think that the title of this biography is misleading, for while there are scores of memos, there are only snippets of letters and I didn’t see any examples of diary entries). The book’s beginning chapter speaks in detail of Hughes’ last, pathetic days, his dependence on drugs for pain relief and his tight-knit entourage of staff who ministered to his final hours. This structure provides us a clear idea of how the remaining book will evolve without bogging us down with detail as Hughes reaches his final minutes.

This is important, as Hack manages the clever trick of packing his book with detail without ever being ponderous. The tale of Hughes’ life is one of glamour and tawdriness, and Hack exposes us to it all, but in a breezy, conversational style that keeps his subject front and center without ever becoming boring. This is not to say that there are some issues with the writing, especially Hack’s use of ridiculous similes’, such as – oh, I don’t know: “piggybacked like barbary macaques in the jungles of Algeria…”; “banks folding like concertinas…”; “he worked with the intensity that old maids give to picking locks…”; “love was as alien to him as a jelly doughnut to a Slovakian rebel…”; “[Robert] Maheu clung to office like a sheet of Saran wrap on a cold bowl…”; [they might] fight among themselves like alley cats over rotting garbage…”. And so on. Also, Hack has the disorienting habit of getting into Hughes’ head and placing thoughts there, with no evidence to back up that that is what Hughes was, in fact, thinking at the time. I dunno; maybe Hacks is a frustrated wannabe novelist?

Hughes managed to make money on any project he pursued, as well as to fight and win many tax battles and stock ownership issues with government agencies and other millionaires. But the most successful thing he managed to do was to withdraw from society, at which point his long decline into madness was well on its way. Plagued by an overly irrational fear of germs and recoiling against his celebrity persona, he withdrew further and further into living his life in rooms whose windows were totally blacked out and where Hughes could avoid almost all human contact. Incredibly, while in the midst of this withdrawal he still managed to expand his empire. If he went into debt – and he often did as he bought properties – he managed both to avoid his many managers any direction as to how to raise capital and most of the times he still managed to come out a winner and richer than before. A tragic story about a strange, brilliant man, who combined intelligence and creativity and was, as far as anyone can tell, mentally unstable, to boot.