Among the Bros

A Fraternity Crime Story

By: Max Marshall

Narrated by: Stephen Graybill

“Among the Bros is a harrowing and disturbing book. I have read about fraternity life but nothing like this. This book will blow your mind, each page digging deeper into the unimaginable. Except every word is true.”—Buzz Bissinger, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Mosquito Bowl and Friday Night Lights

A brilliant young investigative journalist traces a murder and a multi-million-dollar drug ring, leading to an unprecedented look at elite American fraternity life.

When Max Marshall arrived on the campus of the College of Charleston in 2018, he hoped to investigate a small-time fraternity Xanax trafficking ring. Instead, he found a homicide, several student deaths, and millions of dollars circulating around the Deep South. He also opened up an elite world hidden to outsiders. Behind the pop culture cliches of “Greek life” lies one of the major breeding grounds of American power: 80 percent of Fortune 500 executives, 85 percent of Supreme Court justices, and all but four presidents since 1825 have been fraternity members. With unprecedented immersion, this book takes insiders inside that bubble.

Under the live oaks and Spanish moss of Travel + Leisure’s “Most Beautiful Campus in America,” Marshall traces several “C of C” boys’ journeys from fraternity pledges to interstate drug traffickers. The result is a true-life story of hubris, status, money, drugs, and murder—one that lifts a curtain on an ecstatic and disturbing way of life. With expert pacing and a cool eye, he follows a never-ending party that continues after funerals and mass arrests.

An addictive and haunting portrait of tomorrow’s American establishment, Among the Bros is nonfiction storytelling at its finest.

©20203 Max Marshall (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers

Drugs & Frats

If you were around or part of southern Greek culture parts of the story will not surprising to you. But the magnitude of this story and how the author brought so much together in the end was very good.

Great Book-Not so great reading

The actor narrating this book unfortunately sounds like a robot and mispronounces a lot of words. For example, he says "Chi-O" as it reads, but it is pronounced "KI-O" and he called Wofford "Whoaford, etc." Minor, but as the book is about Greek life and based in SC you would think words like this would be pronounced correctly. Makes me question the validly of other elements of the book if these details were not caught by the author or anyone on his team

Appalling and compelling

The story is appalling. Many times I winced as I was listening to the story, especially during the hazing stories. The book was too vulgar for me and I would not have finished if I didn’t have a personal connection. I went to the College of Charleston and was a Zeta Tau Alpha from 1999-2003. I was grateful that the Zetas were not part of this story. During my time in Charleston, my friends and I spent plenty of time out in Charleston, but never encountered the drug scene as mentioned as so wildly in Charleston. The SAEs and KAs were not the best fraternities from my perspective. The SAEs were known as the druggy fraternity and the KAs were good ol boys and we never mixed with either of them. I wondered where the advisors were for these chapters. Our advisors were very active with our chapter and even a tenth of this behavior would have never been tolerated.
I thought the author was extremely thorough in his research. The story was compelling, though appalling. I have a son and hope he does not join a fraternity after reading those book.

This story is Animal House plus my weight in drugs

If the story were fiction I would stop listening because it's too insane. Instead this is a compelling story of the impact illicit behavior depected in movies has on impressionable college students who lived withoit adversity.

Good story, but painful narration

The story itself is engaging, but the literal reading of college kids’ text messages and reenactments of conversations left me cringing. I’m glad I finished it, but I definitely won’t be listening to it again.

Fascinating

So, I don’t think of myself as a naive person. I am close to folks in law enforcement and have taught in public schools for almost thirty years. I have a child who recently graduated from a large university (in the South) and was involved in Greek life. As this book progressed, I was shocked over and over again. If half of this is true, and I believe that this book was well researched and corroborated, this story is mind blowing.

Among The Bores

Hours of boring details about “Greek” life at college including in-depth info on their cars, clothes, drug dealing and party lifestyle. I don’t care about Greek culture. Not for it or against it. I came for a true crime murder story. I made it through Chapter 13 and then I just couldn’t listen anymore. Completely lost interest. Instead, I Googled the details of the murder. If you’re interested in the daily drama, drags, and details of Greek life, this is for you.

Just the tip pf the Iceberg

Intresting book. however this is just the tip of the Iceberg. Been in the bar scene in Charleston since 2000 as a owner and bartender. This has been going on for years, these guys just got caught. Charleston has a seedy underbelly always has always will. The faces change but the game remains the same.

Excellent!

Well researched and written, a very impressive first book. I couldn’t quit listening. Max is a talented writer and I’m already looking forward to his next book!

COC Kappa Sig

Sounds like college! Drug use changed when I was in college in the 80s. Alcohol, pot, coke was it. Drugs were harder to find then, grateful it wasn’t as easily available as portrayed in this book!