Janet Malcolm

The final work of one of the greatest non-fiction writers of the last century is a stunningly original memoir and a moving exploration of family history. For decades, Janet Malcolm's books and dispatches for the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books poked and prodded at reportorial and biographical convention, gesturing towards the artifice that underpins both public...

Is it ever possible to know 'the truth' about Sylvia Plath and her marriage to Ted Hughes, which ended with her suicide? In The Silent Woman, Janet Malcolm (author of Reading Chekhov, The Journalist and the Murderer and In the Freud Archives) examines the biographies of Sylvia Plath, with particular focus on Anne Stevenson's Bitter Fame, to discover how Plath...

The process known as psychoanalysis is sometimes revered, sometimes derided, and most often misunderstood. What good does it do? Can it help anyone? What risks does it pose to both patient and analyst? None of these questions can be easily answered, but in Janet Malcolm's narrative, in which all her skills as a reporter and interviewer come into play, their...

Prizewinning journalist Janet Malcolm discovers the elements of Greek tragedy in a sensational New York City murder trial. "Astringent and absorbing... Iphigenia in Forest Hills casts, from its first pages, a genuine spell — the kind of spell to which Ms. Malcolm's admirers (and I am one) have become addicted." —Dwight Garner, New York Times "This is shrewd and quirky...

Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography: the story of the mystifying relationship between the brilliant and affable Gertrude Stein and her brooding companion, Alice B. Toklas. "Janet Malcolm deftly captures Alice B. Toklas's legendary 40-year partnership with the brilliant modernist Gertrude Stein in Two Lives, clearing up a few mysteries along the way—including how two Jewish women...

'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...

Who will inherit the secrets of Sigmund Freud? Who will protect his reputation? Who may destroy it? In The Freud Archives is Janet Malcolm's investigation into the personalities who clash over Freud's legacy. This has become a celebrated story of seduction and betrayal, love and hatred, fantasy and reality. It is both a comedy and a tragedy. Malcolm's cast of...