“She was far and away the most valuable member of TeamFranken.” Barr says. “I think Al was new to having all these over-eager helpers….We would meet at Al’s apartment and Franni would fly up and it made everyone feel more comfortable.”

“We had our mouths full of food and we couldn’t talk to each other,” adds McCormack.

Wikler says although the students disagreed at times, TeamFranken became a cohesive group.

“There were lots of internal politics, but we all became like family,” he says.

The Birth of a Book

TeamFranken’s weekly meetings, spent heatedly exchanging ideas and sharing research, intellectually stimulated all the students involved and eventually produced a hard-hitting factual book, team members say.

Franken says the students had “tremendous energy,” and Rabin jokes it was hard to get a word in edgewise.

“We’re talking all over each other and incredibly excited,” Rabin says.

Every week, team members were assigned specific topics to research for the following week, and they say these assignments proved more engaging than any academic work.

“I clearly did much more work for this than for any of my classes,” he says. “None of us got paid, none of us got course credits. We did it for fun and experience.”

TeamFranken produced an extraordinary number of facts for Lies, members say.

“The book could have weighed as much as a filing cabinet,” Barr says.

Wikler adds, “We had enough research for six books and the reason the book doesn’t go on is because they made us stop adding pages.”

Wikler said Franken never made the team feel marginalized.

“We all went over chapters,” he said. “There was a shared sense of ownership over the whole thing.”