The Curse of Oak Island

The Curse of Oak Island is high-quality narrative non-fiction from a top-shelf journalist, extrapolated from Randall Sullivan's successful 2004 Rolling Stone article of the same title. The Oak Island mystery is the subject of the History Channel's reality TV series The Curse of Oak Island, which debuted in January 2014 and has become one of the most successful original shows on cable overall. The show follows brothers Marty and Rick Lagina as they attempt to uncover the island's secrets. Randall Sullivan joined the show for its fourth season, which aired November 2016-February 2017.

The book's subject is a fascinating real-life mystery, touching on engineering, early Native American history, and some alternative historical theories, making for a very compelling read. Sullivan's last book, Untouchable, was excerpted in Vanity Fair and named one of Amazon's 100 Best Books of the Year. Sullivan appeared on various shows such as Katie, Good Morning America, and Nightline to promote the book, and it also received strong print attention, with coverage in People, the Los Angeles Times, and the New Yorker, among others.

Open Road Pictures has adapted Sullivan's LAbryinth for film, with Brad Furman directing and Johnny Depp starring. The film is expected to be released in the second quarter of 2018, and we'll be re-issuing the book in a movie tie-in edition.

While there are other books on the Oak Island phenomenon, most are self-published. The two exceptions are The Oak Island Mystery, Solved by Joy A. Steele (Cape Breton University Press, 2015; Bookscan: 959) and Secret Treasure of Oak Island by D'Arcy O'Connor (The Lyons Press, 2004; Bookscan 6290). The most direct competition is the D'Arcy O'Connor book, but that terminates in 2004, whereas Sullivan's covers the Lagina brothers who are at the center of the present hunt (and whose absence is noted by recent Amazon reviewers of O'Connor's book). Sullivan comprehensively debunks the Steele volume, as well as most other Oak Island theories, in the text.