The End of Normal by Stephanie Madoff Mack (audiobook)

The End of Normal is a riveting look into the downward spiral of the Madoff family. Stephanie Madoff Mack is the widow of Mark Madoff, Bernie Madoff’s eldest son that committed suicide two years after the Madoff scandal broke.


The End of Normal details Stephanie’s first meeting with Mark, their dating life, and fairy tale marriage. Stephanie and Mark had a wonderful life with each other and a deep love that only seemed to be threatened by control issues with Mark’s ex-wife. Although Mark came from the uber-rich Madoff family, he made his own wealth by running a successful enterprise in his father’s firm. Mark and Stephanie had a wonderful daughter and were expecting a new son when their world came crashing down.

Mark and his brother Andy sat down with their father to discuss some irregularities at work only to receive a bombshell from their father; he was running a Ponzi scheme and was trying to get rid of the last millions to family and friends before he would be discovered. Mark and Andy left enraged and Mark turned his father in to the authorities later that day.

Although Mark and Andy had nothing to do with Bernie’s Ponzi scheme and had in fact turned him over to the authorities, having the Madoff name became a curse rather than a blessing. Hounded by the press and lawyers, Mark and Stephanie’s marriage started to falter. Mark was also the most hurt by his mother who chose to stay by Bernie’s side at the expense of her sons’ feelings. With their marriage on the mend, Stephanie and her four-year old daughter are at Disney World when the unthinkable happened.

The End of Normal was a fascinating book to listen to at times, but also a very hard book to listen to at other times. Stephanie Madoff Mack read her own work in the audiobook, which gave it the personal touch, but also made it hard to listen to during emotional events. One could hear the crack in Mack’s voice like she was doing all she could to keep it under control. I give her much credit for reading her own memoir for the audiobook version as it must have been fraught with emotional landmines.  I had a hard time stopping this book as I wanted to keep listening to it all of the way through!

The End of Normal gave me a new view of the Madoff scandal. I read Tangled Webs earlier this year, which gave me the clinical view of what went wrong, but this gave me more of the emotional view of how Bernie Madoff’s crimes tore apart his own family, ultimately resulting in his son’s suicide. It also disturbed me how in our society today, a person can be literally hounded to their death. I think Mark Madoff thought he would be helping his family by his death in hopes that the lawsuits would stop, but they only went on to his children.

I just can’t understand how Bernie Madoff could swindle not only the entire world, but his family as well. What did he think would happen to his own family when his crimes would eventually come to light? It makes one wonder if he had any soul at all.

On a side note, I just listened to Silver Girl by Elin Hilderbrand last month and I’m amazed at how much of that novel actually followed the real life circumstances of the Madoff family. It almost makes me want to read it again!

The only negative I had with The End of Normal is that Mack tried to write about how they were a normal family and not living the jet set life of Bernie and Ruth Madoff. While this worked on some level, it had the major effect that it made me believe she didn’t realize how the other 99% lives. Most people do not have three homes and a nanny, especially after losing your job. I think this comes from living an upper middle class life in New York City for her entire life.

Overall, The End of Normal is a captivating personal account of how the Bernie Madoff scandal affected his son’s family. It really made me think about the witch hunt mentality of our society and how that can extend to innocent bystanders.

The End of Normal is my thirteenth item for The Audiobook Challenge 2011.

Audiobook Source: Review Copy from Penguin Audio. Thank-you!

Tangled Webs: How False Statements are Undermining America: From Martha Stewart to Bernie Madoff by James B. Stewart

“Oh! What a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive!” - Sir Walter Scott, “Marmion” (1808)

It has been in the news repeatedly for the last decade, famous or in some cases, infamous members of our society lying under oath to protect themselves. Perjury has become an epidemic in this country and James B. Stewart writes about four case studies of this phenomenon in his powerful new book, Tangled Webs. These case studies include Martha Stewart, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Barry Bonds, and Bernie Madoff. All of these cases shaped us as a nation over the past decade.

Each of these famous people could have taken Mark Twain’s advice, “If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.” By not telling the truth, they basically made things worse for themselves and badly affected a number of people. As Stewart states in the introduction, “This surge of perjury cases at the highest level of business, politics, media, and culture poses some fundamental questions: Why would people with so much to lose put so much at risk by lying under oath? Whatever they may have done, why would they compound their problems by committing an independent felony, punishable by prison? What were the consequences? And what price are all of us paying for their behavior?”

I enjoyed how Tangled Webs gave me a much better understanding of major events that have been in the news and what affects perjury has on our legal system. I’m going to break my discussion of the book down by each section of the book.

Martha Stewart
Martha Stewart is definitely not shown in a positive light in Tangled Webs. She is a powerful business woman who made matters much worse for herself through perjury when asked about sales of some of her stock. I’m glad that she was prosecuted for lying under oath, but I was also disturbed that the “little people” that were part of the case were hurt much more than her.

Scooter Libby
After reading this section, I actually felt kind of sorry for Scooter Libby. Libby had a lot of stuff going on and it would be hard to remember. Overall though it seemed like he decided on a story and stuck with it even when it was proved wrong. I just wanted to reach through the pages of the book, grab him and yell – “just tell the truth!” As Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald stated at the trial, “Having a bad memory is not a crime. . . Something important needed to be investigated: Whether the laws protecting covert agents and classified agents have been broken. And to do that on behalf of the citizens, the FBI and the grand jury needed the truth . . . The defendant obstructed that search for the truth.”

I thought this quote was great also: “Perhaps the greatest irony is that Libby leaked Plame’s identity and mounted a sophisticated campaign to refute what he believed were falsehoods leveled by Joseph Wilson. Libby insisted that all he and the vice president ever wanted was to get the truth out. And then he himself lied, repeatedly and under oath.”

I also loved this: “Still in the end Bush spared Libby a prison sentence, just as he failed to take any action against Rove or Armitage. The message seemed inescapable that in the Bush White house, loyalty trumped truth.” (Rove and Armitage were the actual leaks.)

“The bar for service at the highest levels of government should not be so low that it excludes only those who commit crimes that can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Bush should have fired Rove as soon as his role in the leaks became clear . . . Bush’s failure to do so after saying he’d fire anyone involved in the leak exposed rank hypocrisy to the highest level. . . In light of this story spectacle, could anyone be blamed for being cynical about the integrity of government officials?”

While I read this section, I was disturbed at how much time government officials are obsessed with the news and what is being said about them.

This section of the book was very long, and complicated. It had a great wrap-up section, and I enjoyed learning the details of the case, but I thought overall it dragged a bit.

Barry Bonds
Barry Bonds is not a very nice guy. He was a good baseball player, but he wanted to be the best and so he took drugs in order to get to that level . . . and then lied about it. I was disturbed about the prevalence of drugging in sports and how doctors/scientists work to thwart drug tests. I had no idea it was so widespread.
I don’t know why, but I thought this quote was funny from this section, “Despite being an illegal drug dealer and an illegal immigrant, Heredia was a godsend to the government.”

Bernie Madoff
In the entire Bernie Madoff section I was repeatedly amazed by the incompetence of the SEC. It definitely did not give me much confidence in that agency or the financial markets as a whole. I also was angry by the end of the section that after all of Madoff’s lies, his wife was able to get a bargain for 2.5 million from the government while so many investors were left with nothing. I’m usually not a cruel person, but I wanted all of her money taken away. It was all ill gotten gains.

Stewart’s conclusions at the end of Tangled Webs were excellent. “False statements have a direct, immediate, and often devastating impact, not only on those who make them but on those closest to them, their friends and families; on their colleagues, allies and supporters; on all who rely on their word; on the ideals of fair play, integrity, and trust to which the people of goodwill everywhere aspire; and ultimately to the very moral fabric of the society in which we live.”

“Ultimately, the reason why people at the pinnacle of their careers – respected, acclaimed role models like Martha Stewart, Scooter Libby, Barry Bonds, and Bernard Madoff – committed the crimes of perjury and false statements seems only too obvious: they thought they could get away with it.”

Overall, I really enjoyed Tangled Webs. It was a good, meaty book that really got me thinking about current events and perjury in general. I came away from the book feeling like I had learned a great deal. It had excellent writing. I only got a little dragged down in the Libby section, but I also thought it was the most interesting section so it is a give and take.

This review is part of the TLC book tours. For a listing of all of the other tour stops for this book, please check out this link.

Book Source: The Penguin Group. Thank-you!