Join Grace Farms Foundation in welcoming Kevin Young, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, and poetry editor of The New Yorker, to discuss his latest book Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News, which was recently longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction.

In Bunk Young traces our country’s long history of “hoaxing” and uncovers the considerable racial anxieties and delusions often underlying the practice.

He explores figures like Rachel Dolezal, JT Leroy, Lance Armstrong, Jayson Blair, Nasdiij, Opal Whiteley, Jerzey Kosinski, Sybil, and Clark Rockefeller; séances, spirit photography, and fairies; freak shows and circus acts; “imaginary Indians”; fake autobiographies, made-up memoirs, and phony journalism; and more.