Published: 04/01/2018
ISBN: 9781783784547
129x20mm
192 pages

The Journalist And The Murderer

Janet Malcolm

‘Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible’

In equal measure famous and infamous, Janet Malcolm’s book charts the true story of a lawsuit between Jeffrey MacDonald, a convicted murderer, and Joe McGinniss, the author of a book about the crime. Lauded as one of the Modern Libraries “100 Best Works of Nonfiction”, The Journalist and the Murderer is fascinating and controversial, a contemporary classic of reportage.

One of the best journalists writing in English anywhere

Financial Times

It is often overlooked how good a reporter Malcolm is, fearless in her questioning, ruthless in her pursuit of every last witness. The Journalist and the Murderer is a lesson in not courting your subject too much

Guardian

A spare and unsparing account of tragicomic human folly

The Times

The Author

JANET MALCOLM is widely considered to be one of America’s most notable literary journalists. She was born in Prague and was educated at the University of Michigan. She was a staff writer for the New Yorker and the author of several critically acclaimed books, including In the Freud Archives, The Journalist and the Murderer, Reading Chekhov: A Critical Journey and The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, all published by Granta. She won the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award in Biography for Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice (Yale University Press) in 2008. She died in 2021.

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