The Magazine for Mercenaries Enters Polite Society
(newyorker.com)
In the early nineteen-eighties, Susan Katz Keating was living in California, working as a freelance journalist with a side gig waiting tables. On a newsstand, she came across _Soldier of Fortune_, a monthly magazine infamous for its gonzo war reporting and its gun-for-hire classified ads. “I wanted to write about mercenaries,” she recalled recently. So she placed an advertisement in the publication. “You paid by the word, and I was quite young and didn’t have any money. The ad said, ‘Are you a mercenary? Contact S. Katz.’ And then I gave my home address.”
In the early nineteen-eighties, Susan Katz Keating was living in California, working as a freelance journalist with a side gig waiting tables. On a newsstand, she came across _Soldier of Fortune_, a monthly magazine infamous for its gonzo war reporting and its gun-for-hire classified ads. “I wanted to write about mercenaries,” she recalled recently. So she placed an advertisement in the publication. “You paid by the word, and I was quite young and didn’t have any money. The ad said, ‘Are you a mercenary? Contact S. Katz.’ And then I gave my home address.”