Culture | Self-portraits

In “Still Pictures” Janet Malcolm turns her pen on herself

An acclaimed American journalist probes memory, childhood and storytelling itself

FILE - The New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm leaves the Federal Courthouse in San Francisco on June 3, 1993 in the suit trial brought by psychoanalyst Jeffrey Masson, who claims he was misquoted and libeled in a 1983 magazine article. Malcolm, the inquisitive and boldly subjective author and reporter known for her challenging critiques of everything from murder cases and art to journalism itself, has died. She was 86. Malcolm's death was confirmed Thursday by a spokesperson for The New Yorker, where Malcolm was a longtime staff writer. (AP Photo/George Nikitin, File) — Image: AP

Jan 19th 2023

Janet Malcolm was a journalist who famously compared journalists to con men, “preying on people’s vanity, ignorance or loneliness…and betraying them without remorse.” She was a biographer who skewered the “voyeurism and busybodyism” of biographies. In her books and articles, mostly for the New Yorker, Malcolm used her pen like a knife, trimming fat and gutting pieties. She died in 2021, but her distinctive voice lives on in the syllabuses of writing classes around the world.

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “On reflection”