Murder in Mississippi
On sale
21st August 2014
Price: £9.99
Genre
In 2009 John Safran, a controversial Australian journalist, spent an uneasy few days interviewing one of Mississippi’s most notorious white supremacists. A year later, he hears that the man has been murdered by a young black man. But this is far from a straightforward race killing.
Safran flies back to Mississippi in a bid to discover what really happened, immersing himself in a world of clashing white separatists, black lawyers, police investigators, oddball neighbours and the killer himself. In the end, he discovers just how profoundly complex the truth about someone’s life – and death – can be.
A brilliantly innovative true-crime story. Safran paints an engrossing and revealing portrait of race, money, sex and power in the modern American South.
‘John Safran’s captivating inquiry into a murder in darkest Mississippi is by turns informative, frightening and hilarious’ – John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Safran flies back to Mississippi in a bid to discover what really happened, immersing himself in a world of clashing white separatists, black lawyers, police investigators, oddball neighbours and the killer himself. In the end, he discovers just how profoundly complex the truth about someone’s life – and death – can be.
A brilliantly innovative true-crime story. Safran paints an engrossing and revealing portrait of race, money, sex and power in the modern American South.
‘John Safran’s captivating inquiry into a murder in darkest Mississippi is by turns informative, frightening and hilarious’ – John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
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Reviews
Stunning
'Murder in Mississippi is a page turner'
One of the best pieces of sustained, rigorous journalism I've read in twenty years. It is absolutely magnificent - smart, and wry, and emotional too
[Safran] has written a marvellous book which I cannot put down
Witty, insightful, compelling - In Cold Blood for our generation
Funny and gripping and wonderfully weird . . . It's a tremendous book. I can't praise it too highly
John Safran's captivating inquiry into a murder in darkest Mississippi is by turns informative, frightening and hilarious. It is enlivened by a swarm of creepy locals and a torrent of astonishing details--such as hedge clippers put to surgical use in the performance of an official autopsy
The elegance of this book is that its axis is a resounding 'perhaps' . . . It is this moral ambivalence that draws readers to the true crime genre, and Safran nails it
A winning combination of memoir, true crime and gonzo journalism . . . a compulsive summer read
Weaving a tale that is simultaneously about race, failed systems, money, sex, family and simple rage, Safran truly did lose a year in Mississippi, and getting lost with him is a joy
A hilarious and bizarre story that leads where you least expect it. John Safran has for years been one of my favourite journalists - forever pushing the boundaries, funny, startling, a hurricane
Mississippi is like a trampoline for [Safran's] eccentricities. But the form and content of the story bring out an unfamiliar side of him