Editing Janet Malcolm (section)

== Reception ==

Malcolm's penchant for controversial subjects and tendency to insert her views into the narrative brought her both admirers and critics. "Leaning heavily on the techniques of psychoanalysis, she probes not only actions and reactions but motivations and intent; she pursues literary analysis like a crime drama and courtroom battles like novels," wrote Cara Parks in ''[[The New Republic]]'' in April 2013. Parks praised Malcolm's "intensely intellectual style" as well as her "sharpness and creativity."<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://newrepublic.com/article/112956/janet-malcolms-forty-one-false-starts-reviewed-cara-parks|title=In Praise of Janet Malcolm's Prickly Career|last=Parks|first=Cara|date=April 30, 2013|magazine=The New Republic|access-date=August 27, 2016}}</ref>

In ''[[Esquire (magazine)|Esquire]]'', [[Tom Junod]] characterized Malcolm as "a self-hater whose work has managed to speak for the self-hatred (not to mention the class issues) of a profession that has designs on being 'one of the professions' but never will be." Junod found her to be devoid of "journalistic sympathy" and observed: "Very few journalists are more animated by malice than Janet Malcolm.”<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a10507/rupert-murdoch-janet-malcolm-6075803/ | title=Rupert Murdoch, Meet Janet Malcolm — Pro Scandalist | first=Tom | last=Junod | date=July 11, 2011 | work=Esquire | access-date=June 19, 2021}}</ref> Junod himself, however, has been criticized for a number of journalistic duplicities, including a smirking piece in ''Esquire'' which outed the actor [[Kevin Spacey]],<ref>{{cite web | url=https://buffalonews.com/news/a-public-bashing/article_0aaf6dcd-999e-5d3d-b6e9-cd2ac61d8313.html | title=A Public Bashing | work=Buffalo News| date=September 25, 1997 }}</ref> as well as a similarly homophobic faux profile of the singer [[Michael Stipe]].<ref>{{cite magazine |url= http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/79609/writer-comes-clean-on-fake-stipe-profile|title= Writer Comes Clean On Fake Stipe Profile |date= May 25, 2001 |magazine= Billboard |accessdate=March 3, 2012}}</ref>

[[Katie Roiphe]] summarized the tension between these polarized views, writing in 2011, "Malcolm's work, then, occupies that strange glittering territory between controversy and the establishment: she is both a grande dame of journalism, and still, somehow, its enfant terrible."<ref name="paris-review/interview/6073" />

[[Charles Finch]] wrote in 2023 "it seems safe to say that the two most important long-form journalists this country produced in the second half of the last century were [[Joan Didion]] and Janet Malcolm."<ref name="nytimes/review/still-pictures" />