True Story
  • Published: 3 July 2006
  • ISBN: 9780099464570
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $27.99

True Story

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Brilliant journalism meets true crime in the heart of America - now a major film starring James Franco, Jonah Hill and Felicity Jones, directed by Rupert Goold.

Michael Finkel was a top New York Times Magazine journalist publicly fired and disgraced for making up a composite character for a big investigative news piece about Africa. This book is about how this brilliant, high achieving journalist found himself at that point in his life. But in parallel it's also about Christian Longo, a man accused of the multiple murder of his own wife and three children.

After the deaths, Longo fled to Mexico, where he passed himself off as Michael Finkel, New York Times journalist. These two weird stories come together as Finkel in turn becomes fascinated (perhaps obsessed) with Longo the accused murderer, who while in prison and during his trial would talk only to Finkel. Who is using whom...?
  • Published: 3 July 2006
  • ISBN: 9780099464570
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $27.99
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About the author

Michael Finkel

A young journalist in his mid-thirties who raised chickens and grew hay at his home in Montana, Michael Finkel had a highflying job on the New York Times Magazine until he was publicly fired in February 2002. He is the author of True Story.

portrait photo of Michael Finkel

Praise for True Story

Its a gripping tale, plainly told but artfully constructed, and the twists continue right up to and beyond the climax of the trial

Blake Morrison, Guardian

An absorbing examination of human frailty, the nature of truth and the power of pride... It is also a stonking good read... Extraordinary and terrifying journalism

The Times

The two stories are well told. Finkel has learned his trade, organising his material with immense care and writing in the kind of stripped, unadorned prose beloved by American editors

Brian Appleyard, Sunday Times

A thrilling, unforgettable book... Wonderful

Spectator

A fine, beautifully choreographed addition to the macabre three-legged race linking murderers with writers... Horribly readable

Mail on Sunday

'Utterly compelling'

Irish Times

Finkel is a storyteller

New Statesman

Strange, bizarre adn grimly compelling

Scotland on Sunday

Riveting

London Review of Books
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