Janet Malcolm delves into 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. Examining the always uneasy, sometimes tragic relationship that exists between journalist and subject, Malcolm finds that neither journalist nor subject can avoid the moral impasse that is built into the journalistic...

"A collection of previously published essays and profiles by the legendary critic Janet Malcolm. The title piece of this wonderfully eclectic collection is a profile of the fashion designer Eileen Fisher, whose mother often said to her, "Nobody's looking at you." But in every piece in this volume, Malcolm looks closely and with impunity at a broad range of subjects, from Donald Trump's TV nemesis Rachel Maddow, to the stiletto-heel-wearing pianist...

From one of our most elegantly controversial writers, here is a retrospective of essays, reviews, and profiles that reflects the range and depth of her engagement with psychoanalysis, criticism, art, and literature. Janet Malcolm is perhaps best known for her writings on psychoanalysis, and here, in several essays, she addresses the subject with her usual erudition and lively skepticism, examining aspects of that "absurdist collaboration," the psychoanalytic...