Product Description

Martha Stewart is the most famous and wealthy woman on earth--a person whose name is a brand and whose influence touches virtually every home in North America. This is the Martha Stewart story you have never heard It is the behind-the-scenes story of arrogance and miscalculation that led Martha to a trial that should never have happened...her life in a federal prison cell, told by those who were there...her personal transformation...and finally, her carefully plotted comeback...all the way to The Apprentice and beyond. This gripping narrative reads like a mystery novel and draws upon dozens of exclusive interviews including candid discussions with many principals associated with Martha's trial. In Martha: On Trial, In Jail, and On a Comeback, You'll go behind the scenes through every phase of Martha's fall and rise: the crime itself; the indictment and both sides' trial strategy; the damning testimony of star witness Douglas Faneuil and Martha's long-time friends; the tearful and shocking testimony of her decades' long personal testimony; the verdict and more.Robert Slater spoke to insiders at Alderson Federal Prison Camp to gain insight into Martha's prison life and behavior, including her relationship with inmates and prison authorities and how she began plotting her comeback even while still in prison. Last but not least, he reveals the PR campaign to resurrect Martha's reputation: one that is making her the first convicted business leader of her stature to come back stronger than ever before.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #810489 in Books
• Published on: 2005-12-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

From Booklist
Get ready for the slew of books on Martha Stewart now that her prison term is completed--some obnoxiously pro-Martha, others tenuous (since, after all, she is one of the world's wealthiest women), and some straightforward, without bias. Veteran biographer Slater has little accessibility to America's favorite homemaker and her staff; he relies on massive interviews centering on the actual trial, its prequel, and its sequel. Oddly enough, although he's no defender of Stewart, he's no detractor either, having stated up front that he intends to avoid Chris Byron's (author of Martha Inc., 2002) severely unflattering portrayal. Instead, facts and questions reign. He focuses on intense portraits of such trial figures as Peter Bacanovic and Doug Faneuil. He zeros in on perceived mistakes in the eyes of the public, such as Martha not testifying, the infamous $6,000 Birken handbag, and the "secret" public relations campaign that was never fully realized. Finally, he paints her comeback, the plans to repersonalize her image, the total media saturation on her release from house arrest, the new Apprentice, and the remaking of the Martha Stewart TV show. Somewhat contrived and aimed at the best-seller list, this nonetheless rings with much more conviction about the real Martha. Endnotes. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From the Back Cover

Martha Stewart is the most famous and wealthy woman on earth--a person whose name is a brand and whose influence touches virtually every home in North America. This is the Martha Stewart story you have never heard It is the

behind-the-scenes story of arrogance and miscalculation that led Martha to a trial that should never have happened...her life in a federal prison cell, told by those who were there...her personal transformation...and finally, her carefully plotted comeback...all the way to The Apprentice and beyond. This gripping narrative reads like a mystery novel and draws upon dozens of exclusive interviews including candid discussions with many principals associated with Martha's trial.

 

In Martha: On Trial, In Jail, and On a Comeback, You'll go behind the scenes through every phase of Martha's fall and rise: the crime itself; the indictment and both sides' trial strategy; the damning testimony of star witness Douglas Faneuil and Martha's long-time friends; the tearful and

shocking testimony of her decades' long personal testimony; the verdict and more. Robert Slater spoke to insiders at Alderson Federal Prison Camp to gain insight into Martha's prison life and behavior, including her relationship with

inmates and prison authorities and how she began plotting her comeback even while still in prison.

 

Last but not least, he reveals the PR campaign to resurrect Martha's reputation: one that is making her the first convicted business leader of her stature to come back stronger than ever before.

About the Author

Robert Slater was born in New York City on October 1, 1943, and grew up in South Orange, New Jersey. He graduated from Columbia High School in 1962 and graduated with honors from the University of Pennsylvania in 1966, where he majored in political science. He received a Master’s of Science degree in international relations from the London School of Economics in 1967. He worked for UPI and Time Magazine for many years, in both the United States and the Middle East.

 

Slater wrote 17 books about major business personalities before his new book on Martha Stewart:

•           The Titans of Takeover (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1987).

•           Portraits in Silicon (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987).

•           This … .Is CBS: A Chronicle of 60 Years (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1988).

•           The New GE: How Jack Welch Revived an American Institution (Homewood, IL: Business One Irwin, 1993).

•           Get Better or Get Beaten! 31 Leadership Secrets from GE’s Jack Welch (Burr Ridge, IL: Irwin Professional Publishing, 1994). This book made the business best-seller list in Japan.

•           SOROS: The Life, Times, and Trading Secrets of the World’s Greatest Investor (Chicago: Irwin Professional Publishing, 1996). This profile of superinvestor George Soros appeared on the Business Week best-seller list.

•           Invest First, Investigate Later: And 23 Other Trading Secrets of George Soros, the Legendary Investor (Chicago: Irwin Professional Publishing, 1996).

•           John Bogle and the Vanguard Experiment: One Man’s Quest to Transform the Mutual Fund Industry (Chicago: Irwin Professional Publishing, 1996). This is a profile of the most important business figure in the mutual fund field.

•           Ovitz: The Inside Story of Hollywood’s Most Controversial Power Broker (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997). This book made the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times business best-seller lists.

•           Jack Welch and the GE Way: Management Insights and Leadership Secrets of the Legendary CEO (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998). This is an updated look at the business secrets of General Electric’s chairman and chief executive officer. It made the Business Week and the Wall Street Journal best-seller lists.

•           Saving Big Blue: Leadership Lessons & Turnaround Tactics of IBM’s Lou Gerstner (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999), and The GE Way Fieldbook: Jack Welch’s Battle Plan for Corporate Revolution (New York: McGraw Hill, 1999).

•           Eye of the Storm: How John Chambers Steered Cisco Systems Through the Technology Collapse (New York: HarperBusiness, 2003).

•           Magic Cancer Bullet: How a Tiny Orange Capsule May Rewrite Medical History (New York: HarperBusiness, 2003), co-authored with Novartis CEO Dan Vasella.

•           The Wal-Mart Decade: How a New Generation of Leaders Turned Sam Walton’s Legacy into the World’s #1 Company (New York: Portfolio, 2003). A paperback version was published in June 2004.

•           Microsoft Rebooted: How Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer Re-Invented Their Company (New York: Portfolio, 2004).

•           No Such Thing as Over-Exposure: Inside the Life and Celebrity of Donald Trump (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2005).

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Customer Reviews

In case you missed it & still care: the details of Martha's trial
Most of Robert Slater's newest book covers Martha Stewart's supposedly scandalous business life at the turn of the century: from the phone call she got from stockbroker assistant Doug Faneuil on December 27, 2001; to her trial, sentencing, jail time, and re-entry into the business world in 2005. If you didn't follow these events as they were happening, then you will find this recap enlightening. If you're a Martha fan, then you may even glean a few insights into her personal life and mindset. One has to wonder how much of the introspection is real, however. Slater admits that he didn't get a chance to talk with Stewart directly, and he doesn't name all of his sources. So every paragraph that describes what she was thinking at any given time is open to suspicion. And yet, it might all be true.

Slater's repetitive style, so overwhelming in the Trump profile, "No Such Thing as Overexposure," still folds the storyline over at times. The chapters can read as if they were written as stand-alone magazine articles, assuming that most readers are not privy to previous or subsequent information. Characters are needlessly reintroduced; minor backstory events are repeated. The magazine or newspaper feel continues with sub-headlines that break the storyline in progress and not at natural breaks in the action. Quotes are even pulled out of the text and repeated in gray-boxed sidebars. While those techniques may entice readers skimming through periodicals to stop and grab at a few morsels, they are annoying and unnecessary when employed in book format. The end result doesn't honor the reader. Neither does the placement of the author bio at the beginning of the book, almost making the subject Slater and not Stewart.

The bulk of the book (197 pages) is given to the trial, with a brief recount (15 pages) of her incarceration at Alderson. Perhaps the most valuable portion of the book is the culminating focus on Stewart's objective to reinvent herself and to launch a successful comeback after serving her time. For the most part, she's fulfilled that mission, and this book champions her efforts. Unfortunately, just after this publication was released, Stewart was engaged in a verbal tug-of-war with Donald Trump over the cancellation of her Apprentice series. Trump's words of support for Martha as they appear in this book will leave readers shaking their heads at the newest development in their relationship. Sadly, this book is already out-of-date.

One has to wonder. If Slater's conclusion is true -- that Martha wanted to put this whole nasty business far behind her and emerge stronger than ever -- then a book that rehashes it all once again, in black and white, goes completely against that objective. And yet, the author maintains that he didn't "want to produce a negative book about Stewart." One has to wonder.

Why write 5 pages when 250 will do?
Robert Slater's writing disappoints me. It disappointed me with his recent book about Donald Trump, "No Such Thing as Overexposure", and it disappoints me in the Martha book. It reeks of the "let's write and publish a book as quickly as possible using secondary sources" school which appears increasingly common in our bookstores. Slater repeats the same points over and over again, often using the same words, and in many cases within a page or two of the previous mention. Since he didn't get to interview Martha, the conjecturing and theorising about her life are, at best, superficial, and, at worst, make-believe. I am no fan of Martha Stewart as I am not into homemaking, but read the book as part of broader reading about comebacks. Slater's work contributed little to my thinking.

A Genunie Account
I find her account to be genuie and truthful. The narrative depicts the fall and rise of an extraordinary woman who has the courage to confess the truth.