Totally Wired: The Rise and Fall of Josh Harris and the Great Dotcom Swindle - Softcover

Smith, Andrew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 080212934X ISBN 13: 9780802129345

Publisher: Black Cat, 2019

Synopsis

From award-winning journalist Andrew Smith, the never before told story of the late 1990s dot-com bubble, its tumultuous crash, and the rise and fall of the visionary pioneer at its epicenter.

About this title

About the Author

Andrew Smith has worked as a critic and feature writer for the Sunday Times, the Guardian, The Observer, and The Face. He is the author of the internationally bestselling Moondust, about the nine remaining men who walked on the moon between 1969 and 1972. He lives in California.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The city seems to roll on forever, a bruised carapace of concrete and dust and patchwork shanty settlements. At times the road south is more theoretical than real, three-quarter collapsed into craters that would swallow a four-by-four whole, around which lorries and buses creep like lines of ants. Our Land Cruiser crashes through potholes with the ballistic rattle of machine-gunfire, as—

Eucalypts jut from hills
Traffic screams.
People swarm everywhere.

Our descent reminds me that Addis Ababa is a mile high. Last night I was light-headed and couldn’t work out why.

I can hardly remember how I got here: after making contact with Harris, everything moved so fast. Harris advised me not to call, citing a “mysterious buzz” on his line. The internet scarcely works in Ethiopia, he added, but emails could be sent slowly and painfully between one and three in the morning. He was in the deep south on the shores of Lake Awassa, not far from the lawless Somali border – eight bone-splitting hours’ drive from Addis with no alternative means of travel. Asked why he was there, he told me he was editing a film on game fishing, which answered my question not at all.

My hope that he might find himself somewhere more accessible in the near future was quickly dashed. “i’m pretty much strapped in here…” he wrote “off the grid you might say LOL…”

The only way I could be sure of ever meeting or even speaking to Josh Harris, who had a history of disappearance and unpredictability, would be to travel to Ethiopia.

Edition details

• Publisher: Black Cat
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080212934X
• ISBN 13: 9780802129345
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 412