Discover the Best Books Written by Evan Wright

Evan Alan Wright (born 1965/1966) is an American writer known for his extensive reporting on subcultures for Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. He is best known for his book on the Iraq War, Generation Kill (2004). He also wrote an exposé about a top CIA officer who allegedly worked as a Mafia hitman, How to Get Away With Murder in America (2012).

Although some compare his writings to those of Hunter S. Thompson, Wright claims his biggest literary influences were Mark Twain and British-American author Christopher Isherwood. The New York Times called his military writing "nuanced and grounded in details often overlooked in daily journalistic accounts" and noted his use of "gallows humor."

Wright was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and grew up in Willoughby, Ohio. Both of his parents were lawyers. His father was a prosecutor, then the general counsel for a utility. Wright attended Hawken School but was kicked out for selling marijuana and sent to a home for juvenile delinquents called the Seed. He returned to Hawken and made state debate finals in high school. Wright studied at Johns Hopkins University and at Vassar College; he graduated from Vassar with a degree in medieval history. 

His first writing job was to interview South African political leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi, but it was for a small magazine that did not pay. In 1995, he became the entertainment editor and chief pornographic film reviewer for Hustler magazine. In 2000, he wrote about the experience and the issues surrounding the pornography industry in an article for Salon titled "Maxed Out" and for LA Weekly in a cover story titled "Scenes from My Life in Porn."

Starting in 1996 at Hustler, then at Rolling Stone, Time, and Vanity Fair, he wrote long features based on his immersion in subcultures ranging from radical environmentalists to neo-Nazis. Many of his essays focused on crimes or controversial figures and were said by him to capture a "dark, untamed America" that resembled "the Wild West." Several of his essays were collected in the book Hella Nation, which Wright called a "sort of autobiography." His essays in Hella Nation were compared to Joan Didion's writings on California. Another reviewer called Hella Nation a "comically macabre portrait of American life."

In 2002, Wright went to Afghanistan on assignment for Rolling Stone. In 2003, he was embedded with the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion of the United States Marine Corps during the early stages of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Wright spent his entire time embedded in a recon team led by then Sergeant Brad Colbert. He was under fire with the Marines for several weeks and accompanied them "on point" (i.e., in the lead vehicle). 

One of the Marines in the unit told The New York Times, "He was in the worst possible place to have a reporter. During the first firefight, he took 10 rounds in his door." Wright expressed admiration for the Marines but warned them that a reporter's motto is "charm and betray." He published a series of articles for Rolling Stone magazine titled "The Killer Elite," which, in 2004, received the National Magazine Award for Reporting, the top prize in magazine writing. He then wrote Generation Kill.

In 2007, he returned to Iraq when the surge in U.S. forces began. Wright interviewed General David Petraeus and spent several weeks embedded with U.S. troops in Baghdad, Ramadi, and Diwania. He later criticized American television media for promoting misperceptions of the war. He also criticized some U.S. political leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, for calling the surge a failure before it had been fully implemented.