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Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm (1990, Trade Paperback)

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Featuring the real-life lawsuit of Jeffrey MacDonald, a convicted murderer, against Joe McGinniss, the author of Fatal Vision.

About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group

ISBN-100679731830

ISBN-139780679731832

eBay Product ID (ePID)982936

Product Key Features

Number of Pages176 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication NameJournalist and the Murderer

Publication Year1990

SubjectMurder / General, Media Studies, Journalism

TypeTextbook

Subject AreaTrue Crime, Language Arts & Disciplines, Social Science

AuthorJanet Malcolm

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.5 in

Item Weight5.8 Oz

Item Length8 in

Item Width5.1 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN90-050156

Reviews"It is not with regard to journalism but with regard to the making of works of art that Malcom's important book gathers its inspiration, its breathtaking rhetorical velocity, and its great truth." --David Rieff, Los Angeles Times, "It is not with regard to jounralism but with regard to the making of works of art that Malcom's important book gathers its inspiration, its breathtaking rhetorical velocity, and its great truth." --David Rieff, Los Angeles Times

TitleLeadingThe

Dewey Edition23

Dewey Decimal174.90704

SynopsisNamed one of the 100 Best Nonfiction Books by The Modern Library and The Guardian - With surgical precision, Janet Malcolm dissects the famous case of journalist Joe McGinniss and murderer Jeffrey MacDonald. A riveting exploration of the uneasy dynamic between writers and their subjects and a must-read for anyone intrigued by journalism, the complexities of human nature, and true crime Malcolm deftly analyzes the real-life lawsuit of Jeffrey MacDonald, a convicted murderer, against Joe McGinniss, the author of Fatal Vision. At the heart of this masterfully crafted narrative is McGinniss's controversial portrayal of MacDonald, a former Green Beret convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and two young daughters. While writing the true crime book Fatal Vision , McGinniss ingratiated himself with MacDonald under the guise of supporting his innocence, only to portray him as guilty in the final publication. The resulting libel case put McGinniss's methods on trial, sparking a gripping examination of the ethics governing the writer-subject covenant. Through probing interviews with the key players - the principals, their lawyers, members of the jury, and expert witnesses - Malcolm provides an atmospheric retelling of the sensational trial. But her true subject is the treacherous territory writers must navigate when trying to objectively chronicle the lives of others. With piercing self-awareness, Malcolm examines her own role and motivations, laying bare the inherent conflicts and power dynamics that arise when a journalist pursues a story. Her candid, rueful reflections transform a seemingly straightforward work of reportage into a profound exploration of journalistic ethics and the limits of factual truth., Named one of the 100 Best Nonfiction Books by The Modern Library and The Guardian * With surgical precision, Janet Malcolm dissects the famous case of journalist Joe McGinniss and murderer Jeffrey MacDonald. A riveting exploration of the uneasy dynamic between writers and their subjects and a must-read for anyone intrigued by journalism, the complexities of human nature, and true crime Malcolm deftly analyzes the real-life lawsuit of Jeffrey MacDonald, a convicted murderer, against Joe McGinniss, the author of Fatal Vision. At the heart of this masterfully crafted narrative is McGinniss's controversial portrayal of MacDonald, a former Green Beret convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and two young daughters. While writing the true crime book Fatal Vision , McGinniss ingratiated himself with MacDonald under the guise of supporting his innocence, only to portray him as guilty in the final publication. The resulting libel case put McGinniss's methods on trial, sparking a gripping examination of the ethics governing the writer-subject covenant. Through probing interviews with the key players - the principals, their lawyers, members of the jury, and expert witnesses - Malcolm provides an atmospheric retelling of the sensational trial. But her true subject is the treacherous territory writers must navigate when trying to objectively chronicle the lives of others. With piercing self-awareness, Malcolm examines her own role and motivations, laying bare the inherent conflicts and power dynamics that arise when a journalist pursues a story. Her candid, rueful reflections transform a seemingly straightforward work of reportage into a profound exploration of journalistic ethics and the limits of factual truth., A seminal work and examination of the psychopathology of journalism. Using a strange and unprecedented lawsuit as her larger-than-life example -- the lawsuit of Jeffrey MacDonald, a convicted murderer, against Joe McGinniss, the author of Fatal Vision , a book about the crime -- she delves into the always uneasy, sometimes tragic relationship that exists between journalist and subject. In Malcolm's view, neither journalist nor subject can avoid the moral impasse that is built into the journalistic situation. When the text first appeared, as a two-part article in The New Yorker , its thesis seemed so radical and its irony so pitiless that journalists across the country reacted as if stung. Her book is a work of journalism as well as an essay on journalism: it at once exemplifies and dissects its subject. In her interviews with the leading and subsidiary characters in the MacDonald-McGinniss case -- the principals, their lawyers, the members of the jury, and the various persons who testified as expert witnesses at the trial -- Malcolm is always aware of herself as a player in a game that, as she points out, she cannot lose. The journalist-subject encounter has always troubled journalists, but never before has it been looked at so unflinchingly and so ruefully. Hovering over the narrative -- and always on the edge of the reader's consciousness -- is the MacDonald murder case itself, which imparts to the book an atmosphere of anxiety and uncanniness. The Journalist and the Murderer derives from and reflects many of the dominant intellectual concerns of our time, and it will have a particular appeal for those who cherish the odd, the off-center, and the unsolved.

LC Classification NumberPN4888.E8M35 1990b