PDF Chasing Cosby The Downfall of America Dad Nicole Weisensee Egan 9781580058964 Books

Product details Hardcover 320 pages Publisher Seal Press (April 23, 2019) Language English ISBN-10 1580058965

Chasing Cosby The Downfall of America Dad Nicole Weisensee Egan 9781580058964 Books Reviews

• This book is great if you want to understand the saga of Cosby's prosecution for drugging and raping young women that he had befriended. The author followed the story for over 14 years so she is using original sources and interviews. She is a seasoned reporter and it shows in her perfectly detailed exposition. I wish more journalists wrote this clearly.
• A concise, methodical and yet riveting story of the fall of an American icon.
• Nicole Egan started following Andrea Constand's 2004 accusation of drugging and rape against a man so revered in his Cliff Huxtable, philanthropist, good-guy role that the charges seemed incredible. This from a man who reputedly never drank nor took drugs, who had much to say about raising children to be responsible citizens, and had a lifelong marriage with 5 children raised out of the spotlight. He was on the board of Temple University, a major donor to Spellman college, recipient of over 60 honorary degrees, a collector of art and an author of children's books.
  
  Andrea had waited 3 years to report the crime, triggered by sexual boundry training for her clinical massage training. This was held against her in court although most victims who are raped and report it do wait. After all, he was Bill Cosby, she worked at Temple where he was the most important man on campus, he had been her mentor and maybe she had taken too much to drink- she couldn't remember much between the first drink and waking up undressed.
  
  Cosby had the advantage of the best lawyers, a PR team, resources to bribe or defame accusers, a sterling reputation and a predator's ability to groom potential victims and get them to take pills or drinks. and to feel responsible and embarrassed afterward. He had a DA who had political aspirations and was willing to suppress evidence and the ability to trade up interviews in exchange for suppressing stories from accusers.
  
  But women kept coming out of the woodwork- ultimately 62, although only a handful were allowed to testify- and only one, Tamara Green, in Andrea's first trial, reporting an incident decades earlier. But after comedian Hanibal Buress called out Cosby as a rapist in a much-retweeted routine, and the MeToo movement started avalanches of fallen famous men, Andrea and the other women were ultimately believed 13 and a half years later.
  
  There were a number of issues that Egan discusses. Cosby had numerous unconscious women who he drugged without knowing their health status or other medications, yet never transported them to medical care. He was lucky that none died, although unconscousness lasted for several days in some cases. He had scores of enablers including Hollywood executives, hisi family (his wife Camille famously compared him to Emmet Till- who never raped or drugged anyone), the press, his employees, modeling agencies and even the original DA..He claimed racism, but enjoyed money and power that victims of racism could not hope to share.
  
  The book is excellent and referenced, written by a writer who covered the case from the beginning to the end.
• In "Chasing Cosby," the author points out the discrepancy in how Bill Cosby is regarded by the generation who has never heard of his famous role, "Dr. Cliff Huxtable" as opposed to those who are familiar with the man's work, which makes sense given Cosby was once considered larger than life. Though I never watched "The Cosby Show" regularly, as a child of the eighties, I still internalized the prevalent image of Cosby as a wise and compassionate father figure. I was far from alone - during that decade, Cosby beat out then-President Reagan as the most popular man in America, not to mention defeating other TV dads in that department, including Pa Ingalls and Ward Cleaver. However at the time, the adoring public was unaware of a scandal unfolding that would break a couple of decades later - and tarnish Cosby's Teflon reputation irrevocably.
  
  By any measure, Cosby's achievements were phenomenal, and his ability to overcome adversity - going from a modest upbringing to fame and fortune - was impressive. After first dropping out of high school and joining the Navy (which his absentee father had also joined), Cosby eventually received his master's and Ph.d degrees (and was granted hundreds of honorary degrees), established a scholarship in his and his wife's name, and emphasized the value of higher education to minority youth. But he was best known as a legendary comedian who was successful across mediums (except for perhaps "Leonard Part Six"), and broke racial barriers in entertainment. He gave kids of all colors sage advice on avoiding drugs, staying in school and stranger danger. And Cosby also mentored many young women who worked in the modeling and entertainment industries. This last would wind up being his undoing when he was accused of sexual assault in 2005. When a second woman came forward to support the first, she had been telling her story privately for years, though both were maligned publicly during a court case that ended in a mistrial, and the story eventually died in the national media. The author, who had stuck with the story since it first broke and also experienced attempts to discredit her work by Cosby's legal team, did her best to interview the "Jane Does," and retained her research - which came in handy when a routine by comedian Hannibal Burress accusing Cosby years later, reignited the scandal.
  
  Though it had taken a man to get things going again, this time the #MeToo movement had been born and support for Cosby's victims was considerably stronger thanks to Twitter and social networking. A second trial was arranged, and eventually the number of accusers who would come forward numbered in the sixties. The modus operandi varied little - Cosby would befriend the victim's family, as well, before pressuring them to take pills "to relax," in combination with a drink. He would then offer money to the victims "for educational purposes" or other reasons. In one phone call to a victim's mother, he agreed with her that he was "a sick man," but during the trial displayed bravado, also playing the race card, but luckily, justice prevailed at last.
  
  The author does a superb and thorough job tracing the trajectory of Bill Cosby's career, as well as debunking myths about sexual assault. She and the "Jane Does," many of whom were courageous enough to testify and share their stories, despite having their reputations slandered and their privacy invaded deserve to be commended for their decision. As for the media, some have had the humility to admit they were initially blinded by celebrity - and hopefully, thanks to books like this one, assault victims will have an easier time coming forward in the future.
• When I first saw that Nicki Weisensee Egan had written a book about the drugging and sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby and the subsequent trials and conviction, I thought “Isn’t it a little soon”? This book is a difficult book to read—in terms of the graphic nature of the subject matter—not writing style. The stories of several accusers are laid out in deeply disturbing detail to illustrate a pattern of attack. But on a lot of levels, this book goes beyond Cosby to discuss how something like this could happen.
  
  You have a very powerful man who is America’s favorite dad, celebrity pitch man, and a civil rights icon who offers to mentor these young people who are at a lower station in life and flatters them with gifts and attention, then once he has their trust, gets them alone and drugs and sexually assaults them. It’s a very uncomfortable book to read because the reader has to somehow reconcile these two images and even today a few years later, it’s not easy.
  
  It’s an important book that should stir a vigorous debate, but it’s not for the reader squeamish of graphic material.