Michael Hastings – författare

“The funniest, most savage takedown of the American news media since Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72.”—The Washington PostMichael Hastings’ untimely death at the age of thirty-three rocked the journalism community. But the New York Times bestselling author of The Operators left behind an unexpected legacy: a wickedly funny novel based on Hastings’s own journalistic experiences in the mid-2000s. Discovered in his files, the novel features a wet-behind-the-ears intern named Michael M. Hastings who must choose between his career and the truth. A searing portrait of print journalism’s last glory days, The Last Magazine earned Hastings comparisons to Evelyn Waugh and Hunter S. Thompson and stands as a testament to one of America’s most treasured reporters.From the Trade Paperback edition.

The inspiration for the upcoming movie WAR MACHINE, starring Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton and Ben Kingsley (streaming on Netflix from 26 May).General Stanley McChrystal, the innovative commander of international and US forces in Afghanistan, was living large. Loyal staff liked to call him a 'rock star'. During a spring 2010 trip across Europe to garner additional Allied help for the war effort, McChrystal was accompanied by journalist Michael Hastings of ROLLING STONE. For days, Hastings looked on as McChrystal and his staff let off steam, partying and openly bashing the Obama administration for what they saw as a lack of leadership. When Hastings' piece appeared a few months later, it set off a political firestorm: McChrystal was ordered to Washington, where he was unceremoniously fired.In THE OPERATORS, Hastings gives us a shocking behind-the-scenes portrait of Allied military commanders, their high-stakes manoeuvres and often bitter bureaucratic in-fighting. He takes us on patrol missions in the Afghan hinterlands and to hotel bars where spies and expensive hookers participate in nation-building gone awry, drawing back the curtain on a hellish complexity and, he fears, an unwinnable war.

The inspiration for the Netflix original movie War Machine, starring Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton, and Ben KingsleyFrom the author of The Last Magazine, a shocking behind-the-scenes portrait of our military commanders, their high-stake maneuvers, and the politcal firestorm that shook the United States. In the shadow of the hunt for Bin Laden and the United States’ involvement in the Middle East, General Stanley McChrystal, the commanding general of international and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was living large. His loyal staff liked to call him a “rock star.” During a spring 2010 trip, journalist Michael Hastings looked on as McChrystal and his staff let off steam, partying and openly bashing the Obama administration. When Hastings’s article appeared in Rolling Stone, it set off a political firestorm: McChrystal was unceremoniously fired. In The Operators, Hastings picks up where his Rolling Stone coup ended. From patrol missions in the Afghan hinterlands to senior military advisors’ late-night bull sessions to hotel bars where spies and expensive hookers participate in nation-building, Hastings presents a shocking behind-the-scenes portrait of what he fears is an unwinnable war.  Written in prose that is at once eye-opening and other times uncannily conversational, readers of No Easy Day will take to Hastings’ unyielding first-hand account of the Afghan War and its cast of players.

One of America’s most important young journalists delivers the first substantial piece of narrative nonfiction to chronicle the hard-fought closing months of the 2012 presidential campaign in PANIC 2012. Michael Hastings – BuzzFeed correspondent at large; Rolling Stone contributor; George Polk Award winner; and critically acclaimed, New York Times-bestselling author of The Operators – presents an in-your-face, on-the-ground, real-time, singular account of how the Obama campaign privately panicked and ultimately recovered after the President’s disastrous performance in his first debate with Mitt Romney. In the tradition of iconoclastic journalists such as Hunter S. Thompson, Richard Ben Cramer, and P. J. O’Rourke, Hastings offers an edgy, rollicking, wholly original portrayal of the enormous and intense political operation that is an American presidential campaign.

The “wrenching” (Rachel Maddow, The Rachel Maddow Show) first book by acclaimed journalist Michael Hastings (1980-2013), whose unflinching Rolling Stone article “Runaway General” ended the military career of General Stanley A. McChrystal.At age twenty-five, Michael Hastings arrived in Baghdad to cover the war in Iraq for Newsweek. He had at his disposal a little Hemingway romanticism and all the apparatus of a twenty-first-century reporter -- cell phones, high-speed Internet access, digital video cameras, fixers, drivers, guards, translators. In startling detail, he describes the chaos, the violence, the never-ending threats of bomb and mortar attacks, the front lines that can be a half mile from the Green Zone, that can be anywhere. This is a new kind of war: private security companies follow their own rules or lack thereof; soldiers in combat get instant messages from their girlfriends and families; members of the Louisiana National Guard watch Katrina''s decimation of their city on a TV in the barracks. Back in New York, Hastings had fallen in love with Andi Parhamovich, a young idealist who worked for Air America. A year into their courtship, Andi followed Michael to Iraq, taking a job with the National Democratic Institute. Their war-zone romance is another window into life in Baghdad. They call each other pet names; they make plans for the future; they fight, usually because each is fearful for the other''s safety; and they try to figure out how to get together, when it means putting bodyguards and drivers in jeopardy.Then Andi goes on a dangerous mission for her new employer -- a meeting at the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters that ends in catastrophe. Searing, unflinching, and revelatory, I Lost My Love in Baghdad is both a raw, brave, brilliantly observed account of the war and a heartbreaking story of one life lost to it.

“If Lee Harvey Oswald did it, he could not have done it alone. If he did not, he must be the hit of the century. If he was involvedand somehow double-crossed, alive today must be persons with the guilt of awful silence.”Dallas, Texas. 12.30pm. Friday, 22 November 1963. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated. 48 hours later, Lee Harvey Oswald himself was murdered.Told through the eyes of Oswald’s wife and mother, coupled with extracts from the Warren Commission’s report, we follow the unsettled drifting life of Lee Harvey Oswald – his loveless marriage to his Russian wife, his challenging relationship with his mother and his pathological hatred of Kennedy’s life and achievements. Oswald had the means, motive and opportunity, but did he even do it? Could a man who never did anything on his own murder a President?

A new edition of Tom and Viv, coinciding with the 2006 production at the Almeida Theatre, London.It is Cambridge, 1915, and Tom, and awkward American graduate, meets Viv. Enchanted with each other, the couple are sucked into a whirlwind romance, but as Tom begins to become successful in the field of literature, Viv's volatility becomes a problem rather than a quirk. Their swift marriage turns into an impossible love story.Tom and Viv explores the complex relationship between T.S Eliot and his wife, Vivienne. It premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in 1984,and was made into a major motion picture starring William Defoe and Miranda Richardson in 1994.

1928:The Paris apartment of James Joyce and his family. A world of secret lives and secret dreams. A young student named Samuel Beckett arrives and an unusual love begins.Calico is a fictional story inspired by fact. It is a captivating and exuberant play about a family in crisis. Scrupulously researched, Calico mixes sadness and great compassion to explore love almost to the brink of insanity.Calico opened at the Duke of York Theatre in London's West End in February 2004. It was directed by Edward Hall and starred Imelda Staunton.

“If Lee Harvey Oswald did it, he could not have done it alone. If he did not, he must be the hit of the century. If he was involvedand somehow double-crossed, alive today must be persons with the guilt of awful silence.” Dallas, Texas. 12.30pm. Friday, 22 November 1963. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated. 48 hours later, Lee Harvey Oswald himself was murdered.Told through the eyes of Oswald’s wife and mother, coupled with extracts from the Warren Commission’s report, we follow the unsettled drifting life of Lee Harvey Oswald – his loveless marriage to his Russian wife, his challenging relationship with his mother and his pathological hatred of Kennedy’s life and achievements. Oswald had the means, motive and opportunity, but did he even do it? Could a man who never did anything on his own murder a President?

The work-room of a Savile Row tailors, 1953. Two master craftsmen at daggers drawn: Polish-born Spijak insists that nothing can beat the excellence of a hand-sewn suit, while Eric uses his machine to work at twice the speed and earn twice the money. Sparks fly as each fights his own corner with biting wit and vicious humour. Into this battleground steps Maurice, a teenager at the very start of his apprenticeship. Will he survive the gruelling training to become a master tailor? Or will he, as Spijak’s daughter urges him to, escape?The Cutting of the Cloth, drawn so much from Hastings’s youthful experience as an apprentice tailor, has lain in a drawer. Now Two’s Company brings it rampaging on to the stage.

The work-room of a Savile Row tailors, 1953. Two master craftsmen at daggers drawn: Polish-born Spijak insists that nothing can beat the excellence of a hand-sewn suit, while Eric uses his machine to work at twice the speed and earn twice the money. Sparks fly as each fights his own corner with biting wit and vicious humour. Into this battleground steps Maurice, a teenager at the very start of his apprenticeship. Will he survive the gruelling training to become a master tailor? Or will he, as Spijak’s daughter urges him to, escape?The Cutting of the Cloth, drawn so much from Hastings’s youthful experience as an apprentice tailor, has lain in a drawer. Now Two’s Company brings it rampaging on to the stage.

Set in the Paris apartment of James Joyce and his family, Michael Hasting’s new play takes place when a young student named Samuel Beckett arrives, and an unusual love begins. Michael Hastings is also the author of Tom and Viv (published by Oberon Books), which was about T.S. Eliot’s controversial relationship with his wife Vivienne.

It is Cambridge, 1915, and Tom, an awkward American graduate, meets Viv. Enchanted with each other, the couple are sucked into a whirlwind romance. But as Tom begins to become successful in the field of literature, Viv's volatility becomes a problem rather than a quirk. Their swift marriage turns into an impossible love story.