Among the Bros
A Fraternity Crime Story
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“Among the Bros is a harrowing and disturbing book. I have read about fraternity life but nothing like this. This book will blow your mind, each page digging deeper into the unimaginable. Except every word is true.”—Buzz Bissinger, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Mosquito Bowl and Friday Night Lights
A brilliant young investigative journalist traces a murder and a multi-million-dollar drug ring, leading to an unprecedented look at elite American fraternity life.
When Max Marshall arrived on the campus of the College of Charleston in 2018, he hoped to investigate a small-time fraternity Xanax trafficking ring. Instead, he found a homicide, several student deaths, and millions of dollars circulating around the Deep South. He also opened up an elite world hidden to outsiders. Behind the pop culture cliches of “Greek life” lies one of the major breeding grounds of American power: 80 percent of Fortune 500 executives, 85 percent of Supreme Court justices, and all but four presidents since 1825 have been fraternity members. With unprecedented immersion, this book takes readers inside that bubble.
Under the live oaks and Spanish moss of Travel + Leisure’s “Most Beautiful Campus in America,” Marshall traces several “C of C” boys’ journeys from fraternity pledges to interstate drug traffickers. The result is a true-life story of hubris, status, money, drugs, and murder—one that lifts a curtain on an ecstatic and disturbing way of life. With expert pacing and a cool eye, he follows a never-ending party that continues after funerals and mass arrests.
An addictive and haunting portrait of tomorrow’s American establishment, Among the Bros is nonfiction storytelling at its finest.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Comedies like Animal House and Old School glorify college frat life as a constant source of drunken high jinks, but investigative journalist Max Marshall’s thrilling true-crime book uncovers the privileged, problematic reality. After embedding himself as a student at the College of Charleston following a highly publicized 2016 campus drug bust, Marshall got a firsthand look at the rise and fall of campus kingpin Mikey Schmidt. Schmidt and his pals used the Kappa Alpha organization and other sympathetic fraternities as a national distribution network for controlled substances. Marshall chronicles their rise and fall, from partying with hip-hop stars to shocking episodes of drug-addled violence. Like an anthropologist studying another culture, Marshall writes matter-of-factly about the destruction the band of brothers caused and how other Greek organizations across elite Southern colleges ignored what was going on. This up-close deep dive into the Charleston story is a fascinating, unsettling read.
