Who Is Mary Gabriel?

All those years ago they had said hello to each other and could not look away. Soon, both knew, they would have to say good bye forever. But for now, just for now, it was as it had ever been.
Mary Gabriel, Love and Capital, p. 486

Well, it is all in, and all done. All 709 pages of it. I even thought the notes were good reading! How sick is that? Love and Capital was even nominated for a National Book Award for non-fiction! For an American to write about Karl Marx and get nominated for a National Book Award is like you or me making a short film with a cell phone and having it nominated for an Oscar! Writing about Karl Marx in America automatically puts you way behind the eight ball, so to speak. She should have won! But she got beat out by some tall guy with big hair, that wrote once about Shakespeare, a guy who was merely a front man for the Earl of Oxford. But you get invited everywhere when you write about Shakespeare. It is like recommending a blue chip stock. No one ever got fired for doing that.

Mary Gabriel (Yeah..She is hot, isn't she?)

As I neared the end of her book, I started to wonder; Who is Mary Gabriel? There was practically no information about her in the book, save and except that she was an editor with Reuters for twenty years and the names of two other earlier books, and the fact that she now lives in Italy. Well the Oracle of Ottawa was not happy with that. So I did some simple digging on Google. I found that she had recently did two interviews. So I watched both of them. The first was her December 1, 2011 appearance on Charlie Rose! Like the book must have been really good, if Charlie Rose will have the author of a book on Karl Marx on his nationally syndicated television show!

Why am I not surprised?

But the interview that you simply have to see is the "After Words" interview she did on C-SPAN on October 06, 2011! It is near an hour long and was conducted by Bertell Olman. A lot of information about Mary Gabriel leaks out here between the lines. But you have to watch for yourself... The real interesting thing that I found concerning her education was at Smashwords - About Mary Gabriel- and my earliest suspicions were all but confirmed. She is a native of Minneapolis and a long time resident of Baltimore! Why a nice Catholic girl no doubt? And as I suspected she has had a dream education. A "Diplome" from the University of Paris at the Sorbonne! A B.A. in fine arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art ! And for good measure, cause a girl should always having something financially fungible to fall back on; a Masters degree from American University in journalism!! Man those student loans must have been a real bitch!!

The Oracle of Ottawa did not receive a free copy of Love and Capital. I paid full hardcover price for my copy like everyone else. And I didn't mind a bit, because it was worth it.

Mary Gabriel reading at the National Book Awards. Think of her as the Ian Fleming of biography...