Editing Janet Malcolm (section)

== Career ==
Malcolm was a literary nonfiction writer known for her prose style and her examination of the relationship between journalist and subject.<ref name="NYTimesObit" /> She began working at ''[[The New Yorker]]'' in 1963 with women's interest assignments,<ref name="theguardian/2011/malcolm-life">{{Cite web|last=Brockes|first=Emma|date=June 5, 2011|title=A life in writing: Janet Malcolm|url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2011/jun/06/janet-malcolm-a-life-in-writing|access-date=June 17, 2021|website=[[the Guardian]]|language=en}}</ref> writing about holiday shopping and children's books, as well as a column on home decor.<ref name="paris-review/interview/6073" /> She next wrote about photography for the magazine.<ref name="salon/2000/malcolm" /> She moved to reporting in 1978, which Malcolm attributed to her smoking cessation in a 2011 profile by [[Katie Roiphe]]: "She began to do the dense, idiosyncratic writing she is now known for when she quit smoking in 1978: she couldn't write without cigarettes, so she began reporting a long ''New Yorker'' fact piece, on family therapy, called 'The One-Way Mirror.'"<ref name="paris-review/interview/6073" /> Her preference for writing in the first person was influenced by ''New Yorker'' colleague [[Joseph Mitchell (writer)|Joseph Mitchell]], and she developed an interest in the construction of the auctorial subject as much as the objects it described, quickly realizing "this 'I' was a character, just like the other characters. It's a construct. And it's not the person who you are. There's a bit of you in it. But it's a creation. Somewhere I wrote, 'the distinction between the I of the writing and the I of your life is like [[Superman#Clark Kent|Superman and Clark Kent]].'"<ref name="theguardian/2011/malcolm-life" /> She turned this interest in the construction of narrative to a variety of subjects, including two books about couples ([[Gertrude Stein]] and [[Alice B. Toklas]],<ref>{{Cite news|last=Roiphe|first=Katie|date=September 23, 2007|title=Portrait of a Marriage|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/books/review/Roiphe-t.html|access-date=June 18, 2021|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> and poets [[Sylvia Plath]] and [[Ted Hughes]]),<ref>{{Cite news|last=James|first=Caryn|date=March 27, 1994|title=The Importance of Being Biased|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/27/books/the-importance-of-being-biased.html|access-date=June 18, 2021|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> one on [[Anton Chekhov]],<ref>{{Cite web|last=Hammond|first=Simon|date=July 20, 2013|title=Reading Chekhov: A Critical Journey by Janet Malcolm – review|url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jul/21/reading-chekhov-janet-malcolm-review|access-date=June 18, 2021|website=the Guardian|language=en}}</ref> and another on the [[true crime]] genre.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Friendly|first=Fred W.|date=February 25, 1990|title=Was Trust Betrayed?|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/25/books/was-trust-betrayed.html|access-date=June 18, 2021|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> In a number of works, she returned repeatedly to the subject of [[psychoanalysis]].<ref name="paris-review/interview/6073" />

Malcolm was elected to the [[American Academy of Arts and Letters]] in 2001.<ref name="artsandletters/members">{{Cite web|title=Academy Members |website=American Academy of Arts and Letters|url=https://artsandletters.org/academy-members/|access-date=June 18, 2021|language=en-US}}</ref> Her papers are held at the [[Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library]] at [[Yale University]], which acquired her archive in 2013.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Cummings|first=Mike|date=2019-05-15|title=Undergraduate mines Yale archives for insight into journalist Janet Malcolm|url=https://news.yale.edu/2019/05/15/undergraduate-mines-yale-archives-insight-journalist-janet-malcolm|access-date=2021-06-18|website=YaleNews|language=en}}</ref>

===''Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession''===
{{main| Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession}}
In 1981, Malcolm published a book on the modern [[psychoanalysis|psychoanalytic]] profession, following a psychoanalyst she gave the pseudonym “Aaron Green”. [[Freud]] scholar [[Peter Gay]] wrote that Malcolm's "witty and wicked ''Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession'' has been praised by psychoanalysts (with justice) as a dependable introduction to analytic theory and technique. It has the rare advantage over more solemn texts of being funny as well as informative".<ref>[[Peter Gay]], ''Freud: A Life for Our Times'' (London, 1988) p. 763.</ref>

In his 1981 ''New York Times'' review, Joseph Edelson wrote that ''Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession'' "is an artful book", praising Malcolm’s "keen eye for the surfaces — clothing, speech and furniture — that express character and social role" (noting she was then the photography critic for ''The New Yorker''). It succeeds because she has instructed herself so carefully in the technical literature. Above all, it succeeds because she has been able to engage Aaron Green in a simulacrum of the psychoanalytic encounter — he confessing to her, she (I suspect) to him, the two of them joined in an intricate minuet of revelation."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/27/books/not-much-has-changed-since-freud.html|title=Not Much Has Changed Since Freud|last=Adelson|first=Joseph|date=September 27, 1981|work=The New York Times|access-date=April 30, 2019|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

The book was a 1982 [[National Book Award for Nonfiction]] finalist.<ref name="national-book/malcolm">{{Cite web|title=Janet Malcolm|url=https://www.nationalbook.org/people/janet-malcolm/|access-date=June 17, 2021|website=National Book Foundation|language=en-US}}</ref>

=== ''In the Freud Archives'' and the Masson case ===
Articles Malcolm published in ''The New Yorker'' and in her subsequent book ''[[In The Freud Archives]]'' (1984) offered, according to the book's dust jacket, "the narrative of an unlikely, tragic/comic encounter among three men." They were psychoanalyst [[Kurt R. Eissler]], psychoanalyst [[Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson]], and independent Freud scholar [[Peter Swales (historian)|Peter J. Swales]]. The book triggered a legal challenge by Masson, the former project director for the [[Sigmund Freud Archives]].<ref name="theguardian/2011/malcolm-life" /> In his 1984 lawsuit, Masson claimed that Malcolm had [[libel]]ed him by fabricating quotations she attributed to him.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/19/opinion/public-private-quote-unquote.html|title=Public & Private; Quote Unquote|last=Quindlen|first=Anna|date=May 19, 1993|work=The New York Times|access-date=April 30, 2019|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

In August 1989, [[United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit]] in [[San Francisco]] agreed with a lower court in dismissing a libel lawsuit that Masson had filed against Malcolm, [[The New Yorker]] and [[Alfred A. Knopf]].<ref name="wapo/1989/08/05/libel-suit-dis">{{cite news |last1=Randolph |first1=Eleanor |title=New Yorker Libel Suit Dismissed |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1989/08/05/new-yorker-libel-suit-dismissed/a82f96cd-09f9-422b-9c00-14e96d203d65/ |access-date=10 April 2023 |newspaper=[[Washington Post]] |date=5 August 1989}}</ref>

Malcolm claimed that Masson had called himself an "intellectual [[gigolo]]". She also claimed that he said he wanted to turn the Freud estate into a haven of "sex, women, and fun" and claimed that he was, "after [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]], the greatest analyst that ever lived."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Margolick |first1=David |title=Psychoanalyst Loses Libel Suit Against a New Yorker Reporter |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/03/us/psychoanalyst-loses-libel-suit-against-a-new-yorker-reporter.html |website=New York Times |date=November 3, 1994}}</ref> Malcolm was unable to produce all the disputed material on tape.<ref name="salon/2000/malcolm" /> The case was partially adjudicated before the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]], which held that the case could go forward for trial by jury.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/89-1799.ZO.html|title=Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc., 501 U.S. 496 (1991)|work=cornell.edu|access-date=August 27, 2016}}</ref> 

After a decade of proceedings, a jury finally decided in Malcolm's favor on November 2, 1994 on the grounds that, whether or not the quotations were genuine, more evidence would be needed to rule against Malcolm.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.robertboynton.com/articleDisplay.php?article_id=20%2F |last=Boynton |first=Robert |title=Till Press Do Us Part: The Trial of Janet Malcolm and Jeffrey Masson. |newspaper=The Village Voice |date=November 28, 1994 |access-date=January 8, 2015 |archive-date=January 9, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150109060722/http://www.robertboynton.com/articleDisplay.php?article_id=20%2F |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In August 1995, Malcolm said that she had discovered a misplaced notebook containing three of the disputed quotes,<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/30/arts/malcolm-s-lost-notes-and-a-child-at-play.html|title=Malcolm's Lost Notes And a Child at Play|last=Stout|first=David|date=August 30, 1995|work=The New York Times|access-date=April 30, 2019|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> swearing "an affidavit under penalty of perjury that the notes were genuine."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CEEDF153AF933A0575BC0A963958260/ |title=Stout, David, ''The New York Times'', "Malcolm's Notes and a Child at Play", August 30, 1995 |newspaper=New York Times |date=August 30, 1995 |access-date=January 5, 2012}}</ref>

=== ''The Journalist and the Murderer'' ===
{{main|The Journalist and the Murderer}}
{{quote box
| align = right
| width = 33%
| quote = "Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible."
| author = Janet Malcolm, 1990
}}

Malcolm's 1990 book ''The Journalist and the Murderer'' begins with the thesis: "Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible."<ref>Malcolm, Janet, ''The Journalist and the Murderer'', New York: Knopf, 1990.</ref>

Her example was the popular nonfiction writer [[Joe McGinniss]]. While researching his [[true crime]] book ''[[Fatal Vision]]'', McGinniss lived with the defense team of doctor [[Jeffrey MacDonald]] while MacDonald was on trial for the murders of his two daughters and pregnant wife. In Malcolm’s reporting, McGinniss quickly arrived at the conclusion that MacDonald was guilty, but feigned belief in his innocence to gain MacDonald’s trust and access to the story—ultimately being sued by MacDonald over the deception.<ref name="NYTimesObit" />

Malcolm's book created a sensation when in March 1989 it appeared in two parts in ''[[The New Yorker]]'' magazine.<ref>Scardino, Albert, ''The New York Times''. "Ethic, Reporters and The New Yorker", March 21. 1989. "Janet Malcolm, a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'', returned her magazine to the center of the long-running debate over ethics in journalism this month ... Her declarations provoked outrage among authors, reporters and editors, who rushed last week to distinguish themselves from the journalists Miss Malcolm was describing."</ref> Roundly criticized upon first publication,<ref>See Friendly, Fred W., ''The New York Times Book Review'', "Was Trust Betrayed?", February 25, 1990, and Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher, ''The New York Times'', "Deception and Journalism: How Far to Go for the Story", February 22, 1990.</ref> the book is still controversial, although it has come to be regarded as a classic, routinely assigned to journalism students.<ref name="cjr/2003/McCollum-Silent">McCollum, Douglas, ''Columbia Journalism Review'', "You Have The Right to Remain Silent", January, February 2003.</ref><ref name="paris-review/interview/6073" /><ref name="NYTimesObit" /> It ranks ninety-seventh in [[The Modern Library]]'s list of the twentieth century's "100 Best Works of Nonfiction".<ref>[https://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-nonfiction/ Modern Library: 100 Best Nonfiction]</ref> Douglas McCollum wrote in the ''[[Columbia Journalism Review]]'', "In the decade after Malcolm's essay appeared, her once controversial theory became received wisdom."<ref name="cjr/2003/McCollum-Silent" />

=== Further books ===
In the posthumously published ''Still Pictures: On Photography and Memory,'' Malcolm writes autobiographical sketches, starting the chapters from family photographs.<ref name="nytimes/review/still-pictures">{{Cite news|last=Finch|first=Charles|date=January 11, 2023|title=Janet Malcolm Remembers|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/08/books/review/still-pictures-janet-malcolm.html|access-date=January 11, 2023}}</ref>