Publishers Weekly
04/29/2024
A PR man with a newfound conscience recalls his propaganda campaigns in this raucous debut memoir. Elwood recaps his career at leading Washington, D.C., public relations firms and his strategies to promulgate spin concocted to serve his clients’ hidden agendas. These included a campaign to procure a congressional resolution opposing America’s bid for the 2022 soccer World Cup on the ground that the money should be spent on children’s physical education instead—a ploy that convinced FIFA to let his client, Qatar, stage the Cup—and a successful effort to get Vogue to write a puff piece on the wife of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad that painted the country as “a place without bombings, unrest or kidnappings.” Elwood hit bottom working for Psy Group, an Israeli company that peddled election-influencing services; his activities got him investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller, which provoked a nervous breakdown and suicide attempt. (Later chapters trace a redemptive upswing, which included doing PR for ketamine as an anti-depressant.) Elwood’s picaresque features mordantly funny scenes (a standout chapter involves shepherding client Muammar Gadafi’s deranged adult son Mutassim around Las Vegas) and a savvy exploration of the machinery of public relations, including how astroturfed nonprofits and content-hungry journalists function as PR mouthpieces. The result is an entertaining, wised-up account of the dark arts of reputation laundering. (June)
From the Publisher
"Hilarious and harrowing, and hard to put down. Indeed, I didn't put it down."
—Christopher Buckley, author of Thank You for Smoking
"Journalists often wonder what spinmasters are doing to influence them. The reality Phil Elwood reveals is worse—and more interesting—than we usually imagine. All the Worst Humans is an exhilarating ride through the underbelly of global power structures."
—Ben Smith, author of Traffic and editor in chief of Semafor
"If Hunter S. Thompson billed clients by the hour, it would look like All The Worst Humans by Phil Elwood. The pacing and storytelling propel the book's epic sweep across the darkside of DC and global hotspots. Even the most experienced in PR will learn things they did not know, and Elwood's gripping personal story is an unexpected and wild ride."
—Bill McCarren, former Executive Director, National Press Club
"In his time as a Washington PR maven, Phil Elwood was an advocate for a grisly array of devils, a murderer’s row of actual murderers. With All the Worst Humans, he spills the secrets, surpassing the tired genre of Washington tell-all with a gripping, nonfiction bildungsroman. A 21st century Nick Carraway, Elwood was initially seduced by the trappings of wealth and power, only to become disillusioned by the ignoble causes he served to attain them. Ultimately, All the Worst Humans is a redemption story about becoming a better human, a story Elwood tells with vulnerability, heart, and brutal honesty."
—James Kirchick, New York Times bestselling author of Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington
"A rollicking, unexpectedly affecting story. . . It’s going to be one of the big, buzzy Beltway books of the year."
—Politico
Kirkus Reviews
2024-02-14
A breakneck-pace memoir of a career drumming up publicity for some of the worst human beings in the public eye.
The cliche of public relations client horror stories involves trashed hotel rooms and drunken shenanigans, but Elwood—a publicity “arsonist” for publicity firms serving tyrants, war criminals, the government of Qatar, and a host of wrong-side-of-the-law American politicians—has all of those beat. His debut memoir opens in 2018, as he opens his door to armed FBI agents, wondering which of his many extralegal actions from 20 years in PR had brought them there. Beginning his career as an intern for Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a position acquired with a fake ID, he went on to work years in private PR, where he drank heavily, struggled with depression and bipolar disorder, and plunged into debt despite a generous salary. His client list included, among others, a “murderers’ row of foreign dictators”—e.g., Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi's adult son, whom Elwood babysat through a wild weekend in Las Vegas punctuated with strippers and duffel bags full of cash. In one memorable anecdote, the author writes about “masterminding a trade war between Antigua and the United States” out of vengeance for an old client. Despite the Jason Bourne persona, Elwood reveals himself as a fairly complex character, falling head over heels for the woman who would become his wife and traveling the world hobnobbing with human monsters while secreting an Opus the Penguin plush toy in his luggage for comfort. Exciting and full of bluster, this thrilling tale is hard to look away from—despite the fact that, as the author admits, his misdeeds are “unsettling, like watching someone get mugged in broad daylight and doing nothing to stop it.”
A rowdy, dirty-pleasure story of how it feels to cater to unsavory people for money and excitement.
