Cycle of Lies, Juliet Macur
Cycle of Lies, Juliet Macur
6 Rating(s)
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Cycle of Lies
The Fall of Lance Armstrong

Author: Juliet Macur

Narrator: Carrington MacDuffie

Unabridged: 11 hr 31 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 03/18/2014


Synopsis

The definitive account of Lance Armstrong's spectacular rise and fall.In June 2013, when Lance Armstrong fled his palatial home in Texas, downsizing in the face of multimillion-dollar lawsuits, Juliet Macur was there—talking to his girlfriend and children and listening to Armstrong's version of the truth. She was one of the few media members aside from Oprah Winfrey to be granted extended one-on-one access to the most famous pariah in sports.At the center of Cycle of Lies is Armstrong himself, revealed through face-to-face interviews.But this unfolding narrative is given depth and breadth by the firsthand accounts of more than one hundred witnesses, including family members whom Armstrong had long since turned his back on—the adoptive father who gave him the Armstrong name, a grandmother, an aunt. Perhaps most damning of all is the taped testimony of the late J.T. Neal, the most influential of Armstrong's many father figures, recorded in the final years of Neal's life as he lost his battle with cancer just as Armstrong gained fame for surviving the disease.In the end, it was Armstrong's former friends, those who had once occupied the precious space of his inner circle, who betrayed him. They were the ones who dealt Armstrong his fatal blow by breaking the code of silence that shielded the public from the grim truth about the sport of cycling—and the grim truth about its golden boy, Armstrong.Threading together the vivid and disparate voices of those with intimate knowledge of the private and public Armstrong, Macur weaves a comprehensive and unforgettably rich tapestry of one man's astonishing rise to global fame and fortune and his devastating fall from grace.

About Juliet Macur

Juliet Macur is an award-winning reporter at the New York Times, whose work has been anthologized in Best American Sports Writing. This is her first book.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Ceilidh on October 25, 2014

A gripping and extensively researched documentation of one of sporting's greatest scandals. Macur goes back to the very beginning and is merciless in her takedown of Lance Armstrong's exhaustively detailed narrative, one that positioned him not only as a winner but a hero and inspiration to cancer s......more

Goodreads review by Nicholas on January 12, 2016

This is a riveting account of Lance Armstrong’s meteoric rise and even faster fall, exploring the intersection of physicality, ambition, and deception. A must-read for all sports fan.......more

Goodreads review by GWC on December 31, 2014

I read this book from the perspective of a long time cycling fan. I was generally ambivalent about Armstrong as a rider (too boring), but I've never been bothered by the doping. It's always been part of the sport at the professional level and it always will be. From that perspective, this book is OK......more

Goodreads review by C.M. on March 09, 2014

Cycle of Lies is an amazing account of just how far back the deception in the Armstrong myth goes (childhood it would seem). It’s just one jaw-dropper after another. Big props to Macur for not letting go of this epic tale and for managing the divergent stories. We’d all still be clueless about Lance......more

Goodreads review by Cherryl on April 07, 2015

When Lance Armstrong publicly admitted to doping, I thought, wow, this is big. It wasn't until I read this book, that I realized what a first, class, self-centered jerk Mr. Armstrong was and still is. If his so fans knew the real person, they would not be sadden, he wasn't and isn't the hero every t......more