Iphigenia in Forest Hills

[Malcolm] is acute-and devastating. -Emily Bazelon, New York Times Book Review (Editor's Choice) Reading [Malcolm], you have the sensation of encountering a mind at once incredibly blunt and terrifically precise: a sledgehammer that could debone a shad. That rare and strange effect could only be produced by an intellect as formidable as Malcolm's. -Kathryn Schulz, Boston Globe This is shrewd and quirky crime reporting at its irresistible and disabused best. -Louis Begley, Wall Street Journal In Iphigenia in forest Hills, Janet Malcolm turns her excellence in first-person reportage to the American justice system, by way of a real jury trial in New York City in 2009. . . . A gripping read. -Marcel Berlins, The Times [Malcolm] is an excellent observer, with a good eye for detail. -Lynn Barber, The Sunday Times Ms. Malcolm's books have wintry atmospheres-both intellectual and aesthetic-that derive partly from the way she takes facts and attaches them, like someone hanging tea-light candles from high rafters, to mythology and classic literature. -Dwight Garner, New York Times It would be interesting to put Tom Wolfe (a humidifier) and Ms. Malcolm (a dehumidifier) on the same court case and let them fight it out for the available oxygen in the room. -Dwight Garner, New York Times [Malcolm's] observations about the legal system in America are fierce and finely ground. -Dwight Garner, New York Times This new book does for the courtroom what Malcolm's previous books did for biography, journalism and psychoanalysis. It shows that in a high-stakes trial nobody, least of all the judge, is an entirely disinterested player. -Jonathan Bate, The Sunday Telegraph Janet Malcolm has produced another masterpiece of literary reportage. -Geoff Dyer, FT.com This absorbing book is [Malcolm's] account of a trial that throws an unflattering spotlight on the US justice system, and will make every American cross their fingers and hope never to sit in the dock. -Rosemary Goring, Glasgow Herald If you have never read Malcolm, you are in for a treat. All her books are short and sharp and fiercely intelligent: as one of her colleagues put it, her `blade gleams with a razor edge'....Trials make great theatre and the five week trial of Borukhova and Mallayev offered Malcolm some very colourful characters. -Craig Brown, The Mail on Sunday Malcolm has written a fascinating story....her essay's after effect is entirely disproportionate to its brevity. The disquiet stays with you. It's there in the pit of your stomach. -Rachel Cooke, The Observer As soon as I read this bizarre murder story, I felt impelled to read it again. It is impossible to put down. -Julia Pascal, The Independent . . . . it's after the trial, when Malcolm gets among the Bukharan families in their homes, that she is most splendidly and poignantly in her element. Her presence in the text is lighter, her touch firmer and more delicate, and her attention more warmly and accurately attuned, than those of any other writer I can think of. All her life she has been perfecting this superb narrating and analytical voice and I for one would follow it anywhere. -Helen Garner, Sydney Morning Herald A Lifetime Achievement award for 2011 was given to nonfiction writer and journalist Janet Malcolm by the English-Speaking Union of the United States Runner-up for the Biography/Autobiography category at the Los Angeles Book Festival Finalist for the 2012 Book of the Year in the True Crime category, as awarded by ForeWord Magazine