An up-and-down anthology of important perspectives on injustice within the legal system and crime media alike.
A collection of previously published essays on crime.
Weinman—a crime writer and the editor of a previous anthology, Unspeakable Acts—compiles some of the past few years’ best reporting on crime and crime media, previously published in outlets including Vice and the Atlantic. Some of the essays offer explicit critiques of crime discourses (both true and fictional), from a True Crime Junkies Facebook group to The Wire. Others use the format to tell underreported stories. In an exemplary piece, Justine van der Leun employs both data and human-focused storytelling to reveal the pipeline that pushes women from poverty and childhood abuse to sex work, violence, and prison, often as punishment for “acts of survival” or self-defense. Many essays are well worth reading, but most of them have been widely circulated already, so readers may wonder about the purpose in reprinting them. Both Rabia Chaudry’s introduction and Weinman’s editor’s note make claims about true crime—a phrase that generally conjures murder-mystery podcasts and serial-killer documentaries—without defining it or distinguishing between the genre of voyeuristic entertainment and the systems-focused crime writing that comprises the volume. Chaudry confusingly writes that the recent rise in public consciousness about the injustices of policing and criminal-legal systems can “nearly all…be attributed to true crime media.” However, as some contributors note, sensationalized crime stories can do as much harm as rigorous ones do good. The middle section of the book contains critiques of popular crime media, which Amanda Knox, in a chapter rebuking her own story’s relentless misrepresentation in the media, calls “a voracious content mill.” Weinman sought “to hold the true crime genre to higher ethical standards,” but most of these essays surmount the genre altogether. Other contributors include Wesley Lowery, May Jeong, and Diana Moskovitz.
An up-and-down anthology of important perspectives on injustice within the legal system and crime media alike.Pub Date: July 4, 2023
ISBN: 9780063233928
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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