I wrote about Carl Hoffman’s book The Lunatic Express a couple of years ago. Afterwards, I corresponded a bit with him about the book, and I am still following him on Twitter.

Carl has spent the last year or two working on a book about the disappearance of Michael Rockefeller in New Guinea in 1961 for the publisher William Morrow.  He’s gone deep.  He has found important witnesses who are still alive in Europe.  He has had an awesome researcher in Amsterdam, who’s uncovered hundreds of pages of documents that have never been seen before. He spent February and March in New Guinea, where he stayed with the sons of the men who last saw Michael.  And he’s written 50,000 words so far.

A year into the project he is running out of money.  And he needs to go back – back to Europe to talk to the witnesses again, back to New Guinea.  Quality is all about the details. Key to the whole story is a deep understanding of the Asmat – it’s their sacred world that Michael Rockefeller fell into – and that only comes with time.  Time spend in remote villages on the other side of the Earth.

Carl has launched a project to raise money to finish his book on Kickstarter.com. He only gets funded if he can get enough pledges for the full amount needed. I put in my pledge for $50, which will get me a signed hardcopy of the book, when it’s done.

Here is the link to pledge.

I recommend Carl’s work and I have very much enjoyed his article over the years! If you can spare just a few dollars, please do so. And get the word out. The simplest way to do that is to forward a link to this post.