James Hogue Summary

From the start Bhattacharjee immediately grabs the reader's attention with a narrative on history famous cases of deception. In the case of James Hogue otherwise known as Jay Huntsman or better yet Alexei Santana, a young man who “barely received any formal schooling. He had spent his adolescence almost entirely on his own, living outdoors in Utah, where he’d herded cattle, raised sheep, and read philosophy.”(36) One would assume that creating such intricate lie would be highly difficult to maintain and fallible to scrutiny, yet it became one of many charade that continued with none the wiser. Therefore, establishing a point of interest wherein the rest of the article further elaborates on the topic. From there several studies and lab experiments are reference by Bhattacharjee. In one study by Bella Depaulo, a social psychologist at The university of California, found that on average subjects lied“ one or two times a day.”(38)Therefore, demonstrating that to lie is an ingrained human habit that is done almost seamlessly on the daily. Next comes the personal accounts from Bhattacharjee that evoke a sense of relatability and to some extent nostalgia that makes the topic more personal for the readers.