10/21/2019
A groundbreaking #MeToo journalist finds his own news organization to be the greatest obstacle to the truth in this vivid, labyrinthine memoir. New Yorker scribe and ex-NBC News correspondent Farrow (War on Peace) revisits his 2017 reporting on sexual assault and harassment allegations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein by actresses and employees, an investigation begun but then killed by NBC and eventually published in the New Yorker. Farrow then probes sexual misconduct complaints at NBC itself, including an explosive new claim that Today host Matt Lauer raped NBC news staffer Brooke Nevils. He describes coaxing frightened women to break nondisclosure agreements and go public with their traumas, as well as more sinister currents of intrigue and betrayal. He unearths Weinstein's use of secret agents from the Israeli firm Black Cube to spy on sources—and on Farrow himself. Worse, he contends, NBC executives, some with personal and business ties to Weinstein and pressured by his lobbying and legal threats, started unaccountably turning against Farrow's story as the evidence supporting it mounted. Though a bit baggy, the narrative combines the intricate reporting of All the President's Men with Kafkaesque atmosphere to reveal troubling collusion between the media and the powerful interests they cover. This is a crackerjack journalistic thriller. (Oct.)
11/22/2019
The term catch and kill refers to media organizations buying the rights to a controversial story, and then burying it to protect those accused. In this exposé, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Farrow (War on Peace) examines this practice and profiles women whose careers and lives were ruined by sexual predators who flourished in Hollywood. More than 200 interviews inform this grim assessment that focuses mostly on Harvey Weinstein, the powerful cofounder of Miramax Films, whose assaults went largely unchallenged because his victims had little choice but to sign lucrative nondisclosure agreements, knowing their careers were over. Farrow shows that Weinstein was not the only predator; he details Today show cohost Matt Lauer's brutal assaults that were well known for years by management. Included are gripping stories of Farrow's firing from NBC, how The New Yorker published the author's research as a lengthy article, and how several women victims—the real heroes here—came forward to Farrow with their harrowing stories. VERDICT This chilling narrative reveals the unequal power dynamic between aspiring actors (and women in the media) and the dominant powerbrokers in Hollywood. For true crime fans, and a complement to Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey's She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement.—Karl Helicher, formerly with Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA
★ 2019-10-22
The award-winning journalist sharply illuminates how he exposed Harvey Weinstein as a serial sexual predator.
Along the way, Farrow (War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence, 2018)—a New Yorker contributing writer who has won the Pulitzer Prize, National Magazine Award, and George Polk Award—offers a primer on investigative journalism, a profession that he is well on the way to mastering. For this book, he writes, he drew "on interviews with more than two hundred sources, as well as hundreds of pages of contracts, emails, and texts, and dozens of hours of audio." As the son of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, the author has wrestled for years with allegations of sexual assault in his own family, leveled by his sister Dylan against their father. During his investigation of Weinstein—and later, multiple high-level sexual predators within NBC—Farrow had to fend off complaints that he was too close to the story. Along the investigative path, the author sought insight from his sister and relied on the steadfast support of his partner. Though Farrow and his producer believed their pursuit of Weinstein had the blessing of the top brass at NBC, they gradually learned that Weinstein was using his massive influence to sabotage the investigation. Consequently, the author took his work to the New Yorker, where editor David Remnick provided a venue for him to present his story. Ultimately, Weinstein was arrested. In addition to chronicling his work on the Weinstein project, Farrow also discusses the transgressions of Donald Trump and Matt Lauer. At times, the book is difficult to read, mainly because Weinstein, Trump, Lauer, and other powerful men victimized so many women while those who knew about the assaults stayed quiet. Nonetheless, this is an urgent, significant book that pairs well with She Said by New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey. Both books are top-notch accounts filled with timeless insights about investigative journalism, on a par with classics from Seymour Hersh and Bob Woodward.
A meticulously documented, essential work.
Time Must-Read Book of 2019 NPR Favorite Book of 2019
Washington Post Best Nonfiction Book of 2019
Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2019
Chicago Tribune Best Book of 2019
Fortune Best Business Book of 2019
Bloomberg Best Book of the Year
Telegraph (U.K) Best Book of 2019
Kirkus Best Nonfiction Books of 2019
A Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2019
Library Journal Best Social Science Book of 2019
One of USA Today's Best Books to Read While Stuck at Home
"Meticulous and devastating...part All the President's Men, part spy thriller."—Rasha Madkour, Associated Press
"At the heart of every great noir is a conspiracy of evil that imbues the initial crime uncovered by the hero with a weightier resonance than was immediately obvious. So it goes with Catch and Kill."—Elizabeth Bruenig, TheWashington Post
"The connections between presidents, media moguls, and spies described in Catch and Kill are stranger than fiction. As a novel, it would be a page-turner. As a reported piece of nonfiction, it's terrifying."—Eliana Dockterman, Time
"The year's best spy thriller is stranger - and more horrifying - than fiction...He weaves a breathless narrative as compelling as it is disturbing...bracingly exposes the rot that's persisted across elite American institutions for decades."—DavidCanfield, Entertainment Weekly
"Catch and Killis an important, frightening book...it's also a propulsive, cinematic page-turner "—Erin Keane, Salon
"Darkly funny and poignant...a winning account of how it feels to be at the centre of the biggest story in the world. It is also, of course, a breathtakingly dogged piece of reporting, in the face of extraordinary opposition."—EmmaBrockes, The Guardian (U.K.)
"Absorbing...The behavior documented in Catch and Kill is obviously and profoundly distressing. ... But there are some hopeful threads, too."—Jennifer Szalai, New York Times
"Must read: Catch and Kill, by Ronan Farrow. How #sexualabuse stories got suppressed, and how deep-diving, fact-gathering reporting blew the lid off, despite threats, intimidation, and cronymongering at the top. Chilling!"—Margaret Atwood
"Reads like a thriller...The reveal in Catch and Kill is not that there are corrupt people; it's that corrupt people are in control of our media, politics, and entertainment and that, in fact, many of them remain in control."—RebeccaTraister, The Cut
"Catch and Kill is exhaustively reported...and compulsively readable, with nearly every page revealing a provocative detail about a household name in media or entertainment."—EJDickson, Rolling Stone
"Read this book...Farrow's greatest success was to listen, believe and act, even at his own peril."—MariaL. La Ganga, Los Angeles Times
"Part memoir, part spy thriller, the book is an engrossing account of the dark arts employed by the powerful to suppress their stockpiled bad behavior as well as the cover-up culture that pervades executive suites-many of them at Farrow's former employer, NBC News."—MarisaGuthrie, The Hollywood Reporter
"Historically this book is going to have lasting importance as a vividly detailed, in-the-trenches account of the epic effort it took to try to bring down just a piece of the wall of patriarchy that has kept women exploited and oppressed in the media industry and American life forever."—David Zurawik, The Baltimore Sun
"Catch and Kill is a rip-roaring account of the years spent chasing the Weinstein story and its spin-offs. It's a deep dive into the world of US media, Hollywood pay-outs, Donald Trump's eccentric ways, spies and spineless editors. And is it gripping...dripping with jaw-dropping revelations and moments of astonishing pathos."—Harriet Alexander, The Telegraph (U.K)
"Explosive."—KateAurthur, Variety
"Catch and Kill weaves together months of reporting to reveal explosive allegations that play out like a terrifying spy thriller."—KateStorey, Esquire
"A measured but damning portrait of that failure at NBC, which he ties to a pattern of harassment and abuse within the network."—Annalisa Quinn, NPR.org
"Befitting a Farrow story, Catch and Kill is chocka¬block with scoops and revelations."—PaulFarhi, The Washington Post
"Catch and Kill reads like a thriller, prime to be adapted for the screen."—Sophie McBain, New Statesman
"The book no one can stop talking about."—Bustle
"One can only marvel at [Farrow's] courage, his resilience and moral fiber. It's one thing to tilt at windmills, it's another to tilt at a human power saw."—Stephen Galloway, The Hollywood Reporter
"Riveting and often shocking . . . Catch and Kill has gone off like a hand grenade in the world of New York media . . . compelling"—Sunday Times (U.K.)
"The book is full of plot and drama...This is a story about a ruling class of men who protect one another - and about the courage of women who speak up."—Abraham Gutman, The Philadelphia Inquirer
"This is an urgent, significant book."—Kirkus Reviews, starred
"Combines the intricate reporting of All The President's Men with Kafkaesque atmosphere to reveal troubling collusion between the media and the powerful interests they cover. This is a crackerjack journalistic thriller."—Publishers Weekly
"Catch and Kill is the latest reminder of the extent to which men in power in America can protect one another, and the consequences when that protection succeeds."—Anna North, Vox
"An engrossing, emotive, often drily funny binge... a humdinger of a story... a nuanced appreciation of how women are smeared and discredited...combines righteous anger, gossip and comedy."—The Times (U.K.)
