Pre-Owned Dead Giveaway: The Rescue, Hamburgers, White Folks, and Instant Celebrity... What You Saw on TV Doesn't Begin to Tell the Story... (Paperback) 1938441516 9781938441516

"Bro, I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man's arms ... Dead giveaway." It was a quote that launched a thousand Internet memes.

Charles Ramsey became one of America's most unlikely celebrities -- from dishwasher to international fame in one afternoon.

In this book he tells his outrageous story, a roller coaster account of his life before, during, and after the dramatic rescue of three kidnapped women in Cleveland.

Global news media declared him a hero. Well-wishers mobbed him. The Internet made him a viral sensation. It couldn't have happened to a less likely guy. Now, read how it all went down.

Ramsey was in the wrong place at the right time when he answered a young woman's cry for help, kicked in his neighbor's locked front door, and got her the hell out of there--leading to the astonishing rescue of three young women--Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight--who had been missing for a decade.

Reporters and TV cameras flocked to a neighborhood--and a man--they otherwise would have ignored. Ramsey was ready, with plenty to say.

In this book Ramsey walks us step-by-step through the day of the rescue and talks about living right next door to Ariel Castro--outwardly charming, secretly a monster.

He tells about life before the rescue--growing up a privileged black kid in a white suburb, seeking out trouble over and over, getting kicked out of school, selling drugs, going to prison, and ultimately finding work as a dishwasher and landing by chance on gritty Seymour Avenue.

And he shares what it's like to become an instant celebrity, when suddenly everybody wants a piece of you. (For example, he learned the hard way that when a big TV network flies you to New York City for an interview, that doesn't mean they also bought you a ticket back home to Cleveland!)

This is a wild, eye-opening tale told with a sharp sense of humor.