Village Books in Historic Fairhaven

Description

On February 2002, New York Times Magazine writer Michael Finkel received a startling piece of news: a young man named Christian Longo, wanted for killing his entire family, had been captured in Mexico, where he'd taken on a new identity: Michael Finkel of the New York Times.

The next day, on page A-3 of the Times, came another troubling item: a note from the editors explaining that Finkel, having falsified parts of an investigative article, had been fired. Nonetheless, the only journalist Longo would speak with was the real Michael Finkel, and so Finkel placed a call to Oregon's Lincoln County jail, intent on getting the true story. So began a bizarre and intense relationship—a reporting job that morphed into a shrewd game of cat-and-mouse. Part mystery, part memoir, part mea culpa, True Story weaves a spellbinding tale of murder, love, and deceit with a deeply personal inquiry into the slippery nature of truth.

About the Author

Michael Finkel has written for the Atlantic Monthly, National Geographic Adventure, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Sports Illustrated, and the New York Times Magazine. He lives in western Montana.

Praise for True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa…

Carefully structured, rigorously reported, and fascinating till the end.
-Esquire

Combines crime and intellectual heft...[True Story] could well become a classic of the genre.
-Washington Post Book World

A riveting, disturbing and magnificent merging of two men at their lowest moments.
-New York Newsday

A compulsively readable amorality tale.
-Boston Globe

"Astute and hypnotically absorbing . . . there's a burning sincerity and beautifully modulated writing on every page."
-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A memoir as creepy as it is compelling...expertly and suspensefully told.
-Outside magazine

Always fascinating, sometimes funny, often very weird . . . simply terrific from the first page to the last.
-Jeffrey Toobin