The Analyst

The Analyst: A Memoir

Spring 1994. A windowless room. A camera recording. Two federal agents waiting.

Mark Adams is a twenty-two-year-old Army intelligence analyst with a Top Secret clearance and a problem: a foreign intelligence service thinks he's recruitable-and they have a photograph to prove it.

To understand how he got here, Mark has to go back. To Toledo. To a mother who pulled knives and a father who spoke through a belt. To the neighbor who called it mentorship and the boy who didn't have a word for what it actually was. To an Army that fed him, saw him, and gave him purpose for the first time in his life-then stationed him where all of it disappeared.

The Analyst is the first of two books based on a true story-the origin story of a man whose damage had taught him to maintain six identities, and the system that looked at his fragmentation and saw not a wound but a weapon.

Part literary thriller, part memoir-in-disguise, part survival manual for anyone who ever said "okay" when they meant help.

Names changed. Events real. A story about abuse, identity, sexuality, and military intelligence.

This memoir contains candid discussion of childhood abuse, sexuality, coming-of-age experiences, and the psychological impact of military service.