Evil, And What to Do With It

Little known fact: When I started blogging here, it was mostly extremely brief reflections on books I'd listen to during my day job.

Well, it's back! Not the day job, but the brief reflections on books—I plan to call them "Book Bites," because alliteration is my jam.

First up. Michael Finkel's True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa (apparently alliteration is his jam as well).

via amazon.com

I found Finkel's book by searching for "memoir" (subject keyword) and "e-audiobook" (media type) in the LA public library database, so I had little background information to go on when I started listening.

Background

In short, just as the author is fired from The New York Times for falsifying a character in an investigative news article, he finds himself in an odd friendship with Christian Longo, a man accused of murdering his wife and three children.

Their lives intersect after Finkel learns that Longo impersonated him while on the lam in Mexico—telling everyone who asked that he was a New York Times journalist. The two become avid pen pals and even friends.

Finkel weaves his downfall as a reporter with Longo's account of how he came to murder his wife and children. Although Longo's crimes are exceptional, Finkel comes to identify with Longo, seeing them as in some ways very much alike.

Reflection (spoilers!)

What would it be like to come face to face with evil? And what if you kind of liked the guy anyway? Finkel leaves no doubt in the reader's mind that Christian Longo is an evil person, even as he describes him as charming, witty, and likable.

At the end of his trial, Longo takes the stand to give his account of the murders. It's chilling—not because he's telling the truth (he seems incapable of this), but because of the nature of his lies (as Finkel points out).

I feel like this gets to the heart of a certain something about evil: it gets the details wrong—although internally consistent, Longo's account rings a false ethical note. Longo cannot paint himself in anything less than a favorable light, even as he describes killing his own two year old daughter. He is always the real victim. When he sheds tears over the death of his family (which he caused for no discernible reason), you get the sense that he is actually crying for himself—his loss, his nightmares, his pain. When he remembers hearing his daughter's screams, he feels sorry for himself for having to relive such a painful memory.

I felt conflicted about the character of Michael Finkel, the author. I have a difficult time sympathizing with writers who commit the kind of journalistic crimes that cost him his job. He admits to being an egoist—He was infatuated with "Michel Finkel, New York Times journalist." He admits that he's always had a problem with lying. And when he first brings up his crimes, he gives several superficial rationalizations (deadline pressure, not wanting to let his editor down) which smacks of denying full responsibility.

Ultimately, he comes clean, to his editors and to us. It's harrowing.

But I couldn't shake the sense that Finkel somewhat gleefully capitalized on his special connection with a murderer to revive his own career—I don't know whether this blind spot in the narration is deliberate or not. I don't think we needed a good deal of handwringing over how horrible the death of a women and three young children is—the despicable nature of the crime speaks for itself.

But Finkel seems far more interested in drawing connections between himself and Longo and their mutual manipulation than forthrightly examining the ethics of giving a murderer such free grace to tell his own story. Finkel's self-examination feels surface level at best.

After Longo is convicted on all counts and sentenced to death, he begins dangling the carrot of "What Really Happened" for Finkel—telling, retelling, and revising the story he told in court.

If you've ever dealt with a manipulative person who is trying to maintain a connection with you at all costs, you know exactly what is going on, although Finkel surprisingly seems unaware and initially falls for the gambit (tell me more...)

And there's another connection between Finkel and Longo: neither of them really consider the harm that they've done to other people. Finkel is sorry that he lied, yes, but he never examines (or even mentions) the consequences of his lies for anyone but himself—for example, by considering what it means for a white American male to impersonate a west African child laborer, or how he may have harmed the very humanitarian cause he was trying to support, or, to parallel Longo, how he inadvertently abbreviated or circumvented someone else's story.

In the end, I can't help but feel that as Longo tells and retells "his" story to his devoted audience (Finkel, in this case), he is killing his wife and children over and over and over and over again.

It makes me want to scream at the injustice of it—Longo can revise his life, distorting the truth, changing this or that detail at will, painting himself as the victim, deciding that the murders don't matter anymore and that he's moving on—meanwhile, he put a period on the lives of his family and forever wrested away their ability to write or revise or retell.

After reading this book, I have no interest in reading another word about or by Christian Longo. I don't want to hear his side of the story. Again. I don't care what happens to him. The best I can do is indifference.

Finkel describes having this same experience—wanting nothing to do with Longo—before being sucked back into his web of manipulation and deception. It never ends.

Crossover Recommendations

I was reminded of M. Scott Peck's People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil. There are definite echoes of Christian Longo in Peck's account of evil. I highly recommend this book.

via amazon.com

For more on writers who play fast and loose with the truth, Jon Ronson's book So You've Been Publicly Shamed spends a lot of time on famed fibber Jonah Lehrer. Interestingly enough, Lehrer is also an opaque character—there's never a plausible explanation for why he did what he did, perhaps because the only explanation is that he thought he could get away with it.

Netflix's show Making a Murderer is an obvious companion piece to "True Story"—whether or not you think Steven Avery might still be guilty could be a litmus test of whether you believe in evil or not.

The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists by Eleanor Payson is one of the best books about narcissism that I've read. Longo was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, and although most narcissists are not killers, a book about dealing with them might still be helpful.