THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 16, 1997 TAG: 9701160032
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: BOOK REVIEW
SOURCE: BY MICHAEL PEARSON
LENGTH: 74 lines
IN 1990, JANET MALCOLM published her controversial book on the relationship between non-fiction writer Joe McGinniss and convicted murderer Jeffrey MacDonald, ``The Journalist and the Murderer,'' in which she stated her now-famous thesis: ``Every journalist who is not too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.'' She described the journalist as a kind of confidence man, betraying people without remorse for the sake of a story. In a sense, she was echoing Joan Didion's statement that writers are always selling someone out.
To a certain extent, ``Citizen K: The Deeply Weird American Journey of Brett Kimberlain'' is a ``weird'' gloss on those ideas, essentially an inversion of them. On the surface, Mark Singer's new book is a twisting tale of a twisted drug dealer, Brett Kimberlin, a small-time Iago, a spinner of self-serving stories, a man with a high IQ but virtually no moral vision, it seems. Beneath the surface, though, is the more profoundly interesting story of the journalist deceived. It is something like a non-fiction version of Herman Melville's ``Benito Cereno,'' with Singer playing the role of Amasa Delano, the innocent protagonist who slowly realizes the nature of the evil that sits right in front of him.
If there is any thesis in this fascinating piece of reporting, it might be that the journalist should be as careful about being betrayed as he or she is about betraying the subject of a story. ``Citizen K'' is, finally, a portrait of a master con man, and it is the writer who is initially seduced by his wiles.
Singer's first encounter with his subject came in 1992. Kimberlin, a long-time drug dealer, was then serving a prison sentence for a series of bombings in Speedway, Ind. Kimberlin's story became particularly newsworthy when he made the claim that he had sold marijuana to Dan Quayle when the vice president was a student in college and law school.
Singer wrote a story that appeared in The New Yorker, an article that examined the allegation that Kimberlin had been placed in solitary confinement, essentially silenced by government forces who did not like the direction of his story. Singer's piece of reporting did not exactly take sides, but it had an air of sympathy for Kimberlin.
The real story, however, begins when Singer comes to the realization that Kimberlin, like an evil twin of Jay Gatsby, is a creation of Kimberlin's own vanity and that all of his versions of reality were suspect and many simply preposterous.
Kimberlin is a man who exploits every possible situation. His ego is so out of proportion to the limits of reason that even hubris seems a euphemism for his self-aggrandizement. He could be the poster child for wasted talent. And, in part, it seems to me, therein lies the problem at the heart of this book.
Singer is a terrific reporter and a wonderful stylist, but Brett Kimberlin does not appear to be much more than a petulant, selfish child. Much of the mountain of specific details that Singer offers on Kimberlin's trials and incarcerations is not ultimately compelling, because the reader suspects very early on that Kimberlin is a narcissistic ``black hole'' and that the writer is far more interesting than his subject.
The bad news is that Brett Kimberlin was released from prison, is driving a brand new Mercedes Benz, and is making money once again in sales. The good news is that Mark Singer, the author of ``Funny Money'' and the classic collection of New Yorker articles ``Mr. Personality,'' will have more books to write and hopefully will find a subject that will match his talent, wit and graceful prose style. MEMO: Michael Pearson teaches creative writing and literature at Old
Dominion University. His latest book, on writer John McPhee, is being
published this month by Simon & Schuster/Macmillian. ILLUSTRATION: BOOK REVIEW
``Citizen K: The Deeply Weird American Journey of Brett
Kimberlin''
Author: Mark Singer
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf. 381 pp.
Price: $25