Neal Thompson - A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert Believe It or Not! Ripley

BrilliantWhats truly unbelievable is that its taken us so long to get a full-fledged biography of this great American character. It was worth the wait.

A. J. JACOBS, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE KNOW-IT-ALL AND THE YEAR OF LIVING BIBLICALLY

Neal Thompson has written the book many writers dream ofthe great American rags-to-riches storyand has done it in an intoxicating way. The story of the man who created Ripleys Believe It or Not! is a rip-roaring tale of head-shaking amazement.

MARC J. SEIFER, AUTHOR OF WIZARD: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF NIKOLA TESLA

Robert Ripley was curious in both senses: first, his life was unbelievable to himself; and second, he couldnt feel life as a real thing, so he endlessly collected unbelievable bits of ephemera to make clear to himself that the world was as strange as he was, and also that he was equal to the world. In a way that Im not sure I was expecting, the book builds real sadness into the considerable momentum of its narrative. Neal Thompson constructs an elegant argument: the world Ripley created is the world in which we now live.

DAVID SHIELDS, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE THING ABOUT LIFE IS THAT ONE DAY YOULL BE DEAD

A Curious Manis a work of real beauty and fun and emotionand intense readability. It is a single-session book, one of those that takes your clock and renders it mute until the book has had its say. Thompson is the genuine article: smart and witty, empathetic and a pleasure to read.

DARIN STRAUSS, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF HALF A LIFE AND CHANG AND ENG

Like Robert Ripley, Neal Thompson has a nose for the strange and wonderful. A Curious Manis a rich, compelling read for fans of the exotic and uncanny.

STEWART ONAN, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE ODDS

A biography of a man who was as unusual as the items he collected for hisBelieve It or Not!cartoons An outstanding work I couldnt pull myself away.

FRANK BRADY, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF ENDGAME: BOBBY FISCHERS REMARKABLE RISE AND FALLFROM AMERICAS BRIGHTEST PRODIGY TO THE EDGE OF MADNESS

Most of my childhood I wondered, Who is this person Ripley, and why does he keep demanding to know if I believe his bizarre-seeming claims? Finally Neal Thompson has given us the mans story, and Ripleys life turns out to have been as weird as his facts. A fun but also compelling read that lingers in an unexpected way.

JOHN JEREMIAH SULLIVAN, AUTHOR OF PULPHEAD

Believe it! Neal Thompson has written the definitive biography of the larger-than-life Robert L. Ripley, the father of our minutiae-mad modern society.

KEN JENNINGS, ALL-TIME JEOPARDY! CHAMP AND BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF MAPHEAD AND BECAUSE I SAID SO!

Light This Candle:
The Life & Times of Alan Shepard,
Americas First Spaceman

Driving with the Devil:
Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels,
and the Birth of NASCAR

Hurricane Season:
A Coach, His Team, and Their Triumph
in the Time of Katrina

Copyright 2013 by Neal Thompson

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

Crown Archetype with colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Ripleys, Believe It or Not!, Ripleys Believe It or Not! are registered trademarks of Ripley Entertainment Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

eISBN: 978-0-7704-3621-6

Jacket layout by Joel Holland and Nupoor Gordon
Jacket typography by Joel Holland
Jacket illustrations: Ripley Entertainment Inc.
Jacket photograph: Triff/Shutterstock
Author photograph: Charis Brice

All interior photographs copyright Ripley Entertainment Inc.

v3.1

For Mary, always

For Sean and Leo

Dear Reader,

Want to see archival footage of Ripley in China? At sea? On stage? Want to see a man stick a spoke through his tongue, or get shot in the gut with a cannonball and survive? Unlock exclusive content hidden in the photo section of this bookincluding rare videos and images, audio of Ripleys radio shows, and dozens of original Ripleys Believe It or Not! cartoonsby downloading the free Ripleys Believe It or Not! app and activating the oddSCAN feature. Select Ripley Bio and look for the oddSCAN logos in the photo section of this book. Scan the full page with your smartphone to reveal the hidden content. For more information, visit www.nealthompson.com/books/curiousman.

The freakish breaks all rules; it seems beyond belief because it fails to make any sense; it upsets comforting notions. The freakish is the ultimate avant-garde, a finger in the eye of the buttoned-up bourgeois vision of ordered life, like a tattoo parlor in the midst of a holistic spa.

O, B ELIEVERS , P REPARE TO B E A MAZED!
E DWARD R OTHSTEIN , New York Times

Our daily life is so cut and dried that we get relief from fairy tales. Except Ripleys fairy tales are true, and this excites people. They like to learn that nature makes exceptions. These are fairy tales for grown-ups.

N ORBERT P EARLROTH

In the middle of the Syrian Desert, halfway between Damascus and Baghdad, the half-breed vehicle with twelve sand-surfing balloon tires came to a stop at an indistinct pile of rocks bordered by a scrawny stand of palm trees. It was time for lunch.

Passengers stepped off the car-bus into the brutal heat, including two Americans, one of them more portly and distinctly American than the other.

Robert L. Ripley was dressed in his preferred global travelers outfitblack-and-white wing tips, knee-high socks, white shorts, and a short-sleeved shirt. Atop his head sat a wide-brimmed pith helmet. As the tour bus staff handed out bagged sandwiches, Ripley withdrew his own lunch: a thermos of scotch and soda. He turned and offered a swig to his traveling partner, an earnest young Mormon from Utah named Joe Simpson, who worked for Ripleys boss.

Newspaperman William Randolph Hearst had hired Ripley in 1929, paying him more than $100,000 a year and making Ripley one of the best-paid journalists in all of newspapers. Simpsons job was to protect and serve the famed and famously erratic cartoonist, a role that veered from traveling secretary to photographer to drinking partner. That night, Ripleys caravan stopped at the sprawling fortress compound called Rutbah wells, whose gates lifted as a small crowd gathered to greet the new arrivals. Ripley emerged from his vehicle to hear the distinct drawl of his friend, Will Rogers: Hi, Bob. Where dyou think youre goin?