This all reminds me of something from crime fiction, specifically the introduction to The Continental Op, a collection of short stories by Dashiell Hammett, which was published in 1974. The collection was selected and introduced by Steven Marcus, who wrote in the introduction first: "...an ideal-typical description runs as follows. The Op is called in or sent out on a case. Something has been stolen, someone is missing, some dire circumstance is impending, someone has been murdered--it doesn't matter. The Op interviews the person or persons most accessible. They may be innocent or guilty--it doesn't matter; it is an indifferent circumstance. Guilty or innocent, they provide the Op with an account of what they know, of what they assert really happened. The Op begins to investigate; he compares these accounts with others that he gathers; he snoops about; he does research; he shadows people, arranges confrontations between those who want to avoid one another, and so on. What he soon discovers is that the 'reality' that anyone involved will swear to is in fact itself a construction, a fabrication, a fiction, a faked and alternate reality--and that it has been gotten together before he ever arrived on the scene. And the Op's work therefore is to deconstruct, decompose, deplot and defictionalize that 'reality' and to construct or reconstruct out of it a true fiction, i.e., an account of what 'really' happened."
And then: "What Hammett has done--unlike most writers of detective or crime stories before him or since--is to include as part of the contingent and dramatic consciousness of his narrative the circumstance that the work of the detective is itself a fiction-making activity, a discovery or creation by fabrication of something new in the world, or hidden, latent, potential, or as yet undeveloped within it. The typical 'classical' detective story--unlike Hammett's--can be described as a formal game with certain specified rules of transformation. What ordinarily happens is that the detective is faced with a situation of inadequate, false, misleading, and ambiguous information. And the story as a whole is an excercise in disambiguation--with the final scenes being a ratiocinative demonstration that the butler did it (or not); these scenes achieve a conclusive, reassuring clarity of explanation, wherein everything is set straight, and the game we have been party to is brought to an appropriate end."
It's been too long since I read Hammett's work for me to comment on whether Marcus is "right" about the stories about the Op, but there seemed to be some thoughts relevant to the different types of true crime work you write about in this post. Or not. Curious about what you think.
Thank you so much for this comment, Aaron! Fascinating analysis. I think I've only read one Continental Op story (and The Maltese Falcon), but I love the idea of detection (or writing about crime) being a "fiction-making activity." This seems like something that writers like Capote and Mailer both do and do not endorse. They want to have the freedom to put their authorial/aesthetic stamp on the narrative (a nonfiction novel!), but also want all the authority that comes with writing an account of what "really happened." I'm going to have to pick up this volume immediately! I think its framing is foundational for what I'm trying to say about true crime and crime fiction. It's both an inherently creative activity but also one that requires the destruction of a certain conception of one cohesive or coherent truth.
Oh, good! I went back and forth about making the comment a few times. I'm a bit out of my depth on this, which is why I'm so eager to read anything you have to say on it! From what I understand, I think I agree with what you're saying. I think it's really interesting how true crime creators negotiate that activity when there's an abundance of evidence (e.g. when there's been a trial) and a finding of guilt (or not) versus cases without the same kind of evidence (e.g. missing persons or unsolved cases).
Anyway, I'm much more at home in criminological theory or journalism. Speaking from background in the later, something else these ideas, particularly the expression of authority, remind me of is what Jay Rosen has written about "the View From Nowhere" in journalism. If you haven't come across it yet, this is a decent starting point: https://pressthink.org/2010/11/the-view-from-nowhere-questions-and-answers/.
Third: "I could be wrong, but I think we are in the midst of shift in the system by which trust is sustained in professional journalism. David Weinberger tried to capture it with his phrase: transparency is the new objectivity. My version of that: it’s easier to trust in “here’s where I’m coming from” than the View from Nowhere. These are two different ways of bidding for the confidence of the users." https://pressthink.org/2010/11/the-view-from-nowhere-questions-and-answers/#p25
My copy of the Algiers Motel Incident is somewhere in transit toward me, but I'm really looking forward to reading it with all of "this" as a backdrop.
This is extremely helpful--again, thanks so much for sharing. It's interesting, also, to think about the different rhetorical positions one could write true crime from, and how the gestures toward objectivity are reframed. To go back to Capote, he was not really a journalist by training, but he was sort of cosplaying one when writing In Cold Blood. (Mailer is different in this regard, as is Hersey, and they made different rhetorical choices in presenting their narratives.) But there is also the position of person impacted by the crime or by a related instance of violence (inelegantly put lol). You've got Ann Rule here, and also a whole slew of more contemporary writers whose work I am most interested in (I've name checked them before, but my go-tos are Maggie Nelson, Myriam Gurba, and Alex Marzano-Lesnevich. I haven't read Kristine Ervin's Rabbit Heart yet, but it sounds like it's in this school). In any case, this discussion is coming at a perfect time as I'm working on my counterhistory of true crime chapter. Thanks again so much, and let me know what you think of AMI! I found it quite the powerful read.
I'm glad it was helpful! That is interesting, and I love the idea of Capote cosplaying a journalist! AMI arrived yesterday, and I plan to dive in today. On your recommendation, I read Gurba's Mean (in a couple sittings). Then Johnson's The Other Side. Such compelling reads! Gurba's decision not to reveal all the details of her assault was really significant for me because I've been wrestling with my thoughts on how much detail a true crime writer needs to include about specific crimes while respecting the fact that another human suffered that fate. Johnson's graduated approach to revealing The Man [She] Used to Live With's crimes and general treatment of her were and sometimes obfuscating the "real" details only to come back later to reveal them and her reasons for not revealing them before... Powerful and instructive. Both authors' accounts opened up the "victim's story and experience" in ways I haven't seen done outside of crimoirs (love that term!). Anyway, AMI beckons. I'll let you know what I think.
Great piece, as always!
This all reminds me of something from crime fiction, specifically the introduction to The Continental Op, a collection of short stories by Dashiell Hammett, which was published in 1974. The collection was selected and introduced by Steven Marcus, who wrote in the introduction first: "...an ideal-typical description runs as follows. The Op is called in or sent out on a case. Something has been stolen, someone is missing, some dire circumstance is impending, someone has been murdered--it doesn't matter. The Op interviews the person or persons most accessible. They may be innocent or guilty--it doesn't matter; it is an indifferent circumstance. Guilty or innocent, they provide the Op with an account of what they know, of what they assert really happened. The Op begins to investigate; he compares these accounts with others that he gathers; he snoops about; he does research; he shadows people, arranges confrontations between those who want to avoid one another, and so on. What he soon discovers is that the 'reality' that anyone involved will swear to is in fact itself a construction, a fabrication, a fiction, a faked and alternate reality--and that it has been gotten together before he ever arrived on the scene. And the Op's work therefore is to deconstruct, decompose, deplot and defictionalize that 'reality' and to construct or reconstruct out of it a true fiction, i.e., an account of what 'really' happened."
And then: "What Hammett has done--unlike most writers of detective or crime stories before him or since--is to include as part of the contingent and dramatic consciousness of his narrative the circumstance that the work of the detective is itself a fiction-making activity, a discovery or creation by fabrication of something new in the world, or hidden, latent, potential, or as yet undeveloped within it. The typical 'classical' detective story--unlike Hammett's--can be described as a formal game with certain specified rules of transformation. What ordinarily happens is that the detective is faced with a situation of inadequate, false, misleading, and ambiguous information. And the story as a whole is an excercise in disambiguation--with the final scenes being a ratiocinative demonstration that the butler did it (or not); these scenes achieve a conclusive, reassuring clarity of explanation, wherein everything is set straight, and the game we have been party to is brought to an appropriate end."
It's been too long since I read Hammett's work for me to comment on whether Marcus is "right" about the stories about the Op, but there seemed to be some thoughts relevant to the different types of true crime work you write about in this post. Or not. Curious about what you think.
Thank you so much for this comment, Aaron! Fascinating analysis. I think I've only read one Continental Op story (and The Maltese Falcon), but I love the idea of detection (or writing about crime) being a "fiction-making activity." This seems like something that writers like Capote and Mailer both do and do not endorse. They want to have the freedom to put their authorial/aesthetic stamp on the narrative (a nonfiction novel!), but also want all the authority that comes with writing an account of what "really happened." I'm going to have to pick up this volume immediately! I think its framing is foundational for what I'm trying to say about true crime and crime fiction. It's both an inherently creative activity but also one that requires the destruction of a certain conception of one cohesive or coherent truth.
Oh, good! I went back and forth about making the comment a few times. I'm a bit out of my depth on this, which is why I'm so eager to read anything you have to say on it! From what I understand, I think I agree with what you're saying. I think it's really interesting how true crime creators negotiate that activity when there's an abundance of evidence (e.g. when there's been a trial) and a finding of guilt (or not) versus cases without the same kind of evidence (e.g. missing persons or unsolved cases).
Anyway, I'm much more at home in criminological theory or journalism. Speaking from background in the later, something else these ideas, particularly the expression of authority, remind me of is what Jay Rosen has written about "the View From Nowhere" in journalism. If you haven't come across it yet, this is a decent starting point: https://pressthink.org/2010/11/the-view-from-nowhere-questions-and-answers/.
Three passages that stood out to me...
First: "In pro journalism, American style, the View from Nowhere is a bid for trust that advertises the viewlessness of the news producer." https://pressthink.org/2010/11/the-view-from-nowhere-questions-and-answers/#p4
Second: "If [objectivity] means trying to see things in that fuller perspective Thomas Nagel talked about–pulling the camera back, revealing our previous position as only one of many–I second the motion." https://pressthink.org/2010/11/the-view-from-nowhere-questions-and-answers/#p22
Third: "I could be wrong, but I think we are in the midst of shift in the system by which trust is sustained in professional journalism. David Weinberger tried to capture it with his phrase: transparency is the new objectivity. My version of that: it’s easier to trust in “here’s where I’m coming from” than the View from Nowhere. These are two different ways of bidding for the confidence of the users." https://pressthink.org/2010/11/the-view-from-nowhere-questions-and-answers/#p25
My copy of the Algiers Motel Incident is somewhere in transit toward me, but I'm really looking forward to reading it with all of "this" as a backdrop.
This is extremely helpful--again, thanks so much for sharing. It's interesting, also, to think about the different rhetorical positions one could write true crime from, and how the gestures toward objectivity are reframed. To go back to Capote, he was not really a journalist by training, but he was sort of cosplaying one when writing In Cold Blood. (Mailer is different in this regard, as is Hersey, and they made different rhetorical choices in presenting their narratives.) But there is also the position of person impacted by the crime or by a related instance of violence (inelegantly put lol). You've got Ann Rule here, and also a whole slew of more contemporary writers whose work I am most interested in (I've name checked them before, but my go-tos are Maggie Nelson, Myriam Gurba, and Alex Marzano-Lesnevich. I haven't read Kristine Ervin's Rabbit Heart yet, but it sounds like it's in this school). In any case, this discussion is coming at a perfect time as I'm working on my counterhistory of true crime chapter. Thanks again so much, and let me know what you think of AMI! I found it quite the powerful read.
I'm glad it was helpful! That is interesting, and I love the idea of Capote cosplaying a journalist! AMI arrived yesterday, and I plan to dive in today. On your recommendation, I read Gurba's Mean (in a couple sittings). Then Johnson's The Other Side. Such compelling reads! Gurba's decision not to reveal all the details of her assault was really significant for me because I've been wrestling with my thoughts on how much detail a true crime writer needs to include about specific crimes while respecting the fact that another human suffered that fate. Johnson's graduated approach to revealing The Man [She] Used to Live With's crimes and general treatment of her were and sometimes obfuscating the "real" details only to come back later to reveal them and her reasons for not revealing them before... Powerful and instructive. Both authors' accounts opened up the "victim's story and experience" in ways I haven't seen done outside of crimoirs (love that term!). Anyway, AMI beckons. I'll let you know what I think.