MUMBAI: This one is for those who love the drama of media, especially when it involves the nonagenarian Rupert Murdoch, who played a heavy hand in transforming how the US and global media and entertainment business was run, until YouTube expanded its reach and Netflix arrived on the scene.
Journalist and screenwriter Gabriel Sherman’s Bonfire of the Murdochs is set to release in India on 3 February on Amazon in its Kindle edition. It tells the tale of Rupert Murdoch and his eldest son, who were ranged against his three other children, Prudence, James and Elizabeth, in a battle to gain control of the Fox News and News Corp empire that the elder Murdoch had built para by para, prime-time news by prime-time news, over decades. If one goes by international press reviews and excerpts from the book, it is going to make for a very good read.
As Sherman told a publication: “A member of the family told me that Succession was good but that the family was even weirder. That stuck in my head when I was doing the book, that the real-life story was even more unexpected than the TV show.”
*Bonfire of the Murdochs* tracks how the family fissioned due to Rupert Murdoch’s strategy of pitting sibling against sibling and his decision to change the wording of a trust, handing over control of his empire to his conservative elder son Lachlan, when the original deed had envisioned dividing the empire among his four children. It chronicles how this single decision brought three of his children together to fight a no-holds-barred legal battle with both him and Lachlan in a Nevada court. Rupert ultimately lost the battle and reached a settlement that saw Lachlan inheriting the empire, while his three other children walked away with more than a billion dollars each and a promise not to interfere in future.
Sherman spoke to 150 sources to write the tome, even though he has tracked Murdoch for close to 20 years. Expect an overflow of emotions and plenty of details about family betrayal, hurt, distress and unexpected twists. The book is unputdownable. Pick it up if you are a media aficionado by clicking on the link here.
