SOURCE: Lakoff, Robin Tolmach, and Mandy Aftel. “In the Malcolm Archives.” Nation 263, no. 20 (16 December 1996): 32-5.

In the following essay, Lakoff and Aftel describe the techniques Malcolm employs in her writing to persuade readers, disapproving of her subtle guidance, and asserting that nonfiction should be written from a completely objective stance.

Janet Malcolm covers the trendiest topics of current intellectual discourse: psychoanalysis, its powers and its decline; crime and punishment; the nature of creativity and the price it exacts. Sometimes she subjects herself and her work to pitiless critique: Biography is ghoulish; journalism is a scam. Thus she wins our trust along with our admiration.

Malcolm's style is as worthy of admiration as her content: lucid yet artful, complex but not turgid. We appreciate her skill in playing postmodern games: genre-crossing (is The Journalist and the Murderer a whodunit, a metawhodunit examining the rules of crime reportage or a...