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Fatal Vision

4.06 of 5 stars 4.06 · rating details · 8,090 ratings · 166 reviews

Fatal Vision is the electrifying true story of Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald, the handsome, Princeton-educated physician convicted of savagely slaying his young pregnant wife and two small children, murders he vehemently denies committing.

Bestselling author Joe McGinniss chronicles every aspect of this horrifying and intricate crime, and probes the life and psyche of the magnetic...more

Paperback, 976 pages

Published September 5th 2012 by Signet (first published 1981)

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Feb 20, 2008 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: true-crime

A true-crime classic. Definitely read it in tandem with Janet Malcolm's brilliant, brilliant, brilliant "The Journalist and the Murderer," which analyzes the lawsuit of prisoner Jeffrey MacDonald (convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and two children in 1970) against author Joe McGinniss, whom he claimed libelled and defamed him in this book. "How can you slander a convicted killer?" you ask. That's what Janet Malcolm wanted to know, too, and her answer -- her book -- is ingenious. And whate...more

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Apr 03, 2010 TheGirlBytheSeaofCortez rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-to-read-more-than-once, books-written-by-friends, contemporary-authors, non-fiction, true-crime

A friend told me "Green Beret" murderer, Jeffrey MacDonald, convicted in 1979 of killing his pregnant wife, Colette and their two young daughters, Kimberley, five, and Kristen, two at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina on February 17, 1970 now has a motion for a new trial being considered before the Fourth Circuit Court in Richmond, Virginia.

This is not the place for an in-depth discussion of Jeffrey MacDonald’s guilt or lack of guilt or even his chances of getting a new trial. However, the discussion di...more

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Oct 28, 2012 Lisa (Harmonybites) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: biography, crime, history, non-fiction, ultimate-reading-list

The book about Jeffrey MacDonald and the murder of his family is not without controversy and detractors. Janet Malcolm's 1990 book, The Journalist and the Murderer," accused McGinniss of acting like a confidence man, pretending friendship to gain MacDonald's trust long after McGinnis had been convinced of his guilt. As she herself posits in her book, this is part of journalism's stock and trade. I've seen it in action myself. I found myself misquoted once in a national, very famous magazine--and...more The book about Jeffrey MacDonald and the murder of his family is not without controversy and detractors. Janet Malcolm's 1990 book, The Journalist and the Murderer," accused McGinniss of acting like a confidence man, pretending friendship to gain MacDonald's trust long after McGinnis had been convinced of his guilt. As she herself posits in her book, this is part of journalism's stock and trade. I've seen it in action myself. I found myself misquoted once in a national, very famous magazine--and I had considered the writer of the article a friend. He caught me when I was upset and I just blurted out how I felt, only to find it used and distorted on the page. I asked him why he made up the words he put into my mouth and his answer to me was simple: "The way I wrote it was funnier." I've been peripherally involved twice in events surrounding news stories--what I read in the newspapers and magazines bore little resemblance to what I knew first hand. So Malcolm's accusation that McGinniss tarted up MacDonald's personality, forcing him into the profile of a narcissist to better sell the book does hit home with me. It's a serious and on the face of it a plausible charge given my own experience.

However I vividly remember the 60 Minutes interview by Mike Wallace of MacDonald confronting him with passages from Fatal Vision in manuscript. His story just didn't wash, for multiple reasons you can read about in this book. I certainly have no doubts, especially after reading this book, that MacDonald is guilty beneath his glossy, charismatic surface. Those defending him try to blacken McGinniss' motives and methods, but I don't see them disputing his facts. Yes, there's something unsavory about how McGinniss got his story, just as there was with the documentary of Michael Jackson put together by Martin Bashir that put forth allegations about Jackson's relationships with young boys. Both men betrayed a trust, but that doesn't mean either story is inaccurate. One thing for sure, you can't question McGinniss got very close to his query: enough for us to get a very intimate picture of, if not a narcissist as claimed, then a man who murdered his own family. And McGinniss is a good writer. I'm not a regular imbiber of true crime books, but this book has been in print since 1983 for good reasons: it's a compelling, completely engrossing well-written book.(less)

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Nov 03, 2007 Jim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: any one

Great use of how different people see the same thing differently. Convinced me the good doctor killed his wife and kids

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Jan 15, 2013 Sharon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book after reading Gene Weingarten's article in the Washington Post Magazine about the prosecutor Brian Murtagh who still drags himself to MacDonald's innumerable appeals and petitions for release. Someone has to speak for the victims here.

Weingarten's article was written in response to a new book on the Jeffrey MacDonald case by Errol Morris, the author who famously wrote The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War.

In reading the article, it occurred to me that while I had certainly heard...more I read this book after reading Gene Weingarten's article in the Washington Post Magazine about the prosecutor Brian Murtagh who still drags himself to MacDonald's innumerable appeals and petitions for release. Someone has to speak for the victims here.

Weingarten's article was written in response to a new book on the Jeffrey MacDonald case by Errol Morris, the author who famously wrote The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War.

In reading the article, it occurred to me that while I had certainly heard of this case throughout my life (I was five when the murders occurred, a freshman in high school when MacDonald's trial occurred, and in college and law school throughout his many appeals and his suit against the author, Joe McGinniss), I had never actually read the book.

I gave this four stars because while it is truly a fascinating read, it is difficult to get through. MacDonald is incredibly unlikeable-- his own voice is the most condemning in the book. So shallow. So narcissistic. So very, very creepy. Having read it, I now understand why many of the critics of the Morris book refer back to this one. McGinniss explores the facts of the case and all of the evidence, and leads the reader to see the gigantic gulf between MacDonald's version of events and the evidence in the case. And there is evidence. The initial investigation was botched in ways that would be comical if it weren't so tragic and didn't have such devastating consequences: The crime scene was never secured and was corrupted in many exciting ways that would make the average prosecutor long to line up the entire crew of investigators and beat them with the murder weapon. Evidence was lost. Evidence was thrown away. Heck, an ambulance driver who had responded to the scene STOLE MACDONALD'S WALLET FROM HIS DESK while the MPs looked on!

For all that Morris and MacDonald rail against the boobtastic and slapstick investigation, they miss the essential irony of his case: If the police had not bungled the initial investigation so badly, MacDonald would have been convicted swiftly and surely with little fanfare. No book deals, no miniseries, no TV appearances... it would have just been another sad domestic case. The evidence that was lost and/or corrupted would have very likely only further secured his guilt.(less)

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Nov 04, 2012 Karen Stinneford rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I first read this book shortly after it came out, and remember being absolutely riveted by it. I just re-read it, having recently completed Errol Morris' "A Wilderness of Error" promoting MacDonald's innocence.

On second reading, Fatal Vision is not particularly well written. Basically, it is court proceeding transcripts interspersed with MacDonald's musings into a tape recorder. It is boring and one feels like one is wading through a marsh to get to e other side.

That being said, there is also no...more

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Jun 25, 2012 Katherine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: thought-provoking, riveting, really-good, summer-2012

This was my true crime book of the summer - I've been trying to get through the classics of the genre, but you really can't read more than one of these at a time. Last summer I read Helter Skelter, and a few years ago I read In Cold Blood. I tried to read The Executioner's Song, but couldn't get through more than 100 pages or something. For another time, maybe.

But ANYWAY. Fatal Vision is an incredible book. It's exhaustively detailed and clocks in at 684 pages, but I read it pretty fast, even ju...more This was my true crime book of the summer - I've been trying to get through the classics of the genre, but you really can't read more than one of these at a time. Last summer I read Helter Skelter, and a few years ago I read In Cold Blood. I tried to read The Executioner's Song, but couldn't get through more than 100 pages or something. For another time, maybe.

But ANYWAY. Fatal Vision is an incredible book. It's exhaustively detailed and clocks in at 684 pages, but I read it pretty fast, even just on my commute to and from work each day. As the reader, you learn about Jeffrey MacDonald's life before and after the murders, his presumed innocence, the damning physical evidence against him, the many hearings and trials and indictments, and finally how the author, Joe McGinniss, became convinced of MacDonald's guilt.

While MacDonald sued McGinniss for defaming him, there really is no page saying, MACDONALD IS GUILTY. THAT'S IT. BELIEVE IT. McGinniss says explicitly at the end that that's what HE believes (and I think you'd be pretty dense not to agree with him), but there's definitely room to draw your own conclusions.

As a human, I loved the detail about all the people involved in the case. As a journalism student, I found McGinniss's tales of the struggle to report this story heartbreaking and invaluable.

The only criticism I have of this book is that it can get a little repetitive. Because the case was heard so many times as it went through the army, then the grand jury, then the trial, then the 4th circuit (sorry if I forgot one), and because McGinniss wants to be as exhaustive as possible, he repeats the same evidence many, many times. This is good because it drives the points home (I would have no problem explaining to a friend in detail why MacDonald is guilty), but after a while I was like, okay, I know about the holes in the pajama top matching up with Colette's wounds.

I love this book and I think any fan of mystery, true crime or just really good reporting would feel the same. It will stay with me for a very long time, and I'm happy about that.(less)

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Jan 02, 2012 Carolyn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: true-crime

Very insightful, revealing, and horrifying portrait of a murderous psychopath and how he attempts to manipulate others to his own advantage. I read this book with an open mind about the case, unsure if I believed MacDonald had killed his wife and two young daughters. It lays everything out there clearly for the reader...from the physical evidence, the circumstantial, the hard to believe story MacDonald told...and perhaps most disturbing, transcripts of the author's interviews with MacDonald show...more

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Apr 29, 2010 Dennis Littrell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: true-crime

McGinniss Joe. Fatal Vision (1983) *****
One of the classics of the true crime genre

This is one of the most chilling of true crime tales, and one of the most intriguing. Former Green Beret officer Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald (still in prison last time I checked) called the police early one morning to report that his pregnant wife and two young daughters had been murdered by a marauding gang of hippies shouting "Kill the pigs, acid is groovy" while he received some superficial wounds trying to fight the...more

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Jan 11, 2013 Dawnelle Wilkie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction-general

Maybe I'm setting myself for disappointment but ever since reading Truman Capote's In Cold Blood I've been looking for its modern-day equal. Midnight in The Garden of Good and Evil came close but slightly missed the mark. I was cautiously optimistic when I read a description of Fatal Vision describing it as "a true-crime classic." It became clear very quickly that I was in for another disappointment.

The journalistic ideal of remaining objective and keeping the writer out of the story is necessa...more

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Jan 29, 2013 Teresa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald seemed like he had it all: promising medical career, beautiful wife who adored him, and two wonderful little girls whose futures held great possibilities.

Until that fateful night in February 1969 when everything was taken from him.

In "Fatal Vision," Joe McGinniss tells the tragic tale of murder, deception, and a decade-long pursuit for the truth. As in his novel "Blind Faith," McGinniss's writing is clear, descriptive, and captivating. I found myself totally engrossed in th...more

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Apr 06, 2013 Dina rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm a tad addicted to true crime books right now. Especially those by Joe McGinniss.

I knew nothing about this well-known crime that took place in the early seventies, and that has gone on to endure decades of legal battles. The really unique thing about this story was the author's perspective. He got up close and personal with the accused for years, and spent decades of his own life engrossed in this heinous crime. It's a crime that's really hard to comprehend given all the facts.

My only issue w...more

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Aug 30, 2012 Sam Primera added it · review of another edition

Shelves: i-did-see-the-show, i-own-this

Charles Manson Had Been Tried And Convicted.He Was Making National Headlines In Print And On TV.You Couldn't Get Away From Him If You Tried.On An Army Base Miles Away,Army Doctor And Green Beret Jeffrey MacDonald Dials The Operator And Demands An Ambulance.His Wife Collette,Daughters Kim And Crissy,And Jeff Himself Have Been Bludgeoned,He Claims,By Hippies-In The Style Of The Manson Family.

When Help Arrives,The Rescue Team Discover The House Looking Like A Tornado Hit It.They Find Collette And T...more

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May 14, 2012 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book opened up the door to my love for true crime stories. I read it when I was 17 years old. A friend heading to college for a degree in criminal justice let me borrow it to read, stating I would not be able to put it down and he was correct. I spent 20 years trying to aquire this book for my collection. One sunny Saturday at a sale in our town park to raise funds for a new playground, there perched on top of stacks and stacks of books, was my prized book! I bought it and have read it two...more

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Nov 04, 2012 J.M. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: true-crime, nonfiction

I read "A Wilderness of Error" before I read this book, and approached this with the thought that, if MacDonald wasn't innocent, then at least his trial had been a travesty of justice.

However, with this book under my belt, while it may be true that the jury never heard all the evidence in this case, I'm more than 90% sure MacDonald is guilty of the crimes. With or without Stoeckley's "confessions," the evidence is very damning.

Well-written, a perfect read for those interested in true crime, thou...more

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Jul 19, 2012 Lilian rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is an amazing account of the Fort Bragg murders in 1970. It truly is one of the best true crime books out there, reminiscent of Capote's "In Cold Blood" and Bugliosi's "Helter Skelter." I commend Mr McGinniss research and loyalty in reporting facts.

I cannot think of an appropriate way to describe the murders itself, except it was very, very WTF, especially when we learn MacDonald has been diagnosed with pathological narcissism, another WTF. It was so strange how he kept defending himself an...more

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Aug 20, 2011 James rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I don't know if I've ever felt so manipulated by an author as I did with this book. McGinniss is a very skilled writer, so skillful that he knows what to bring in and what to leave out to make the reader think or feel a certain way.

In writing from the Voice of Jeffrey MacDonald, he leaves in all of the speech hesitance to create the impression that MacDonald is always searching for the right thing to say. I have only taken one journalism course, but in that course I learned to take those out be...more I don't know if I've ever felt so manipulated by an author as I did with this book. McGinniss is a very skilled writer, so skillful that he knows what to bring in and what to leave out to make the reader think or feel a certain way.

In writing from the Voice of Jeffrey MacDonald, he leaves in all of the speech hesitance to create the impression that MacDonald is always searching for the right thing to say. I have only taken one journalism course, but in that course I learned to take those out because they undermine the subject's credibility, and it does to a great degree. It makes the subject seem stupid or deceptive, when in truth it's just writing how people actually talk. The fact that he left them in, likely knowing the effect, and knowing that readers won't assume that a doctor who was an undergrad at Princeton, studied medicine at Northwestern, and did his residency at Columbia is stupid, therefore must be deceptive, is a very clever technique. McGinniss seems to be saying, do not trust this man.

(This is where the spoiler is, so stop reading if spoilers bother you)

I also have a theory that MacDonald's lawyer, Segal, threw the case. Segal is a wonderful lawyer, he thinks about all aspects of the case and how to present it to the jury to make them sympathetic. He is arguing to a jury of mostly white, Southern-born, middle class 35-40 year olds. He gets a lawyer named Wade Smith, who is well-respected and congenial, to argue most of the case, as Smith is a charismatic Southern-born, middle class man, the same as the jury. Segal knows the case, and has worked on it for about 10 years to that point, so he coaches Smith and MacDonald on everything, what to say, how to say it, what questions to prepare for, what their body language should be, when to cry, when to be stoic, and so on.

Then, in the final argument, he decides that he will take two hours to unravel the prosecution's case, and give the last hour and fifteen minutes to Smith to talk about what a fine man MacDonald is, how well-respected and beloved he is, and how no man of such character could possibly murder his entire family. It doesn't happen that way. Segal spends three hours railing against the investigators and the investigation, police (which is very suspect, because he chose an ex-cop to be on the jury, who became the foreman, and if you know anything about cops, the first thing you learn is don't talk shit about cops), giving Smith just 10 minutes to talk about MacDonald's character.

It seems like it could have been a mistake or an ego trip, but Segal is a very methodical and calculating man in the book. It leads me to believe that he deliberately made all of the mistakes that he warned MacDonald and Smith not to make, prejudiced the jury, and blew the case all to hell. It leads me to believe that Segal, after hearing the evidence, became convinced of his client's guilt, and being unable to say that, instead blew the case purposefully.

MacDonald is the only reasonable suspect, and is likely guilty of the slaughter of his family. That is the only plausible explanation. His story just doesn't make sense. Hippies infiltrating Fort Bragg to murder people while leaving no signs of struggle makes no sense. The Manson crime scenes were left in chaos, couches ripped apart, blood everywhere, furniture toppled and destroyed, while MacDonald's home just seemed to be minorly upset, one table overturned, stab wounds in precise, orderly places, as if done by someone with medical knowledge. The Manson killers stabbed everywhere, in the belly, the back, even when their victims were subdued and likely dead, they kept stabbing in a frenzy. The MacDonald murders were too neat, the wounds were done by someone who knew what was just enough to kill, not enough to make a mess, not something that drugged up hippies would be able to accomplish unless they were anal and medically trained. MacDonald relied on the prejudice against hippies and his own background to get away with murder, and that is very clear.

This is a book about egos. I don't think in any true crime book I've read had an author's headshot as part of the photo insert before, unless they were directly involved in the case (like Bugliosi in Helter Skelter, and I think Ann Rule had a picture in Stranger Beside Me working the phones of a suicide hotline with Ted Bundy). McGinniss includes his face on a whole page, while the victims of the crime, who I really wanted to see and study and feel the loss of, are relegated to small thumbnails, their faces indistinct, unrecognizable. In one of the photos, the murdered daughters, who were terribly young, are in costumes for Halloween. It seems to me that the book is about who has the last word, and McGinniss takes it. (less)

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Sep 15, 2010 Cgrant rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 14, 2013 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

" Ok well I'm in like year five of being obsessed with true crime and seemingly normal people who murder people. And this book HITS DA SPOT if you're into that sorta stuff. The cover looks so trashy, whatEVER edition you have, there's no way around that-- but it's very thorough (maybe a little too thorough for some people, its super long) and also,I thought,quite well written. Really absorbing. The only reason I'm taking off a star is for the LAME part at the end where the author talks for pages...more

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Mar 25, 2013 Barb rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

Fascinating account of the murder of the wife and two young daughters of a Green Beret doctor--from the murders through the initial military trial to indictment and trial. McGinniss does a good job keeping his agenda hidden until well into the book, when he finally reveals his own thought developments about the case. He allows MacDonald's voice to come through throughout the book, but particularly in the beginning and the end.

I couldn't get myself to give more than three stars, though, not becau...more

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Aug 27, 2009 Julie Montoya rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

i really enjoyed this book. it is about Jeffrey Macdonald, a man convicted in 1979 of murdering his pregnant wife and two daughters. i read this when i was single and i don't think i could read it now as a mom but the author actually shared a prison cell with Jeffrey and the chapters alternate between Jeffrey's childhood/growing up and present day. it is interesting as a character study... how this man who was voted "most popular" and "most likely to succeed" and was an army officer and respecte...more

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Dec 07, 2012 Stephanie Phipps rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites-rereads

Another one of my favs, lost my copy, b/c pages were coming out. I remember the mini-series being on tv when I was younger. This story has always facinated me. To this day I still watch everything I can find on it. Basically, there are two choices as to who is guilty. Jeffery or his hippie attackers. Colettes family comes to believe that Jeffery alone is guilty of these horrible crimes. While Jeff and his new wife, who married him in prison, say he has been innocent all along, that the hippies d...more

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Dec 20, 2012 Caroline rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: didn-t-finish, read-in-2012

I had to stop reading this halfway through, which is still an achievement since it is a 600 page behemoth of crap. I have no idea how this book gets such glowing reviews!

McGinniss is not only highly biased and fails to present a convincing case against Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald, a doctor accused (and later convicted) of killing his family in 1970. First, the book is poorly written and lacking in editing. It seems that McGinniss includes anything anyone ever said about anything related to this case a...more

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May 13, 2012 Ida rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A disturbing true crime story about a Green Beret medical doctor with all the right credentials who is currently serving what amounts to a life sentence for the brutal slaying of his pregnant wife and 2 young daughters in February 1970. Simply reading the descriptions of the crime scene to my husband was enough for him to say,"Guilty without a doubt!" I have to admit that I felt the same way. The house was too orderly for a rampaging group of crazed druggies to have even been in the house. But r...more

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May 07, 2010 Gayle Gordon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own, non-fiction

Really good true crime story. Makes me want to find out even more about the case, since this was written a couple of decades ago and some new information might have come out.
I just read the other reveiws and I appreciate the recommendations of The Journalist and the Murderer and Fatal Justice. I'm going to try to get both of those. I guess I'm hooked on the story.
One thing still bugs me. How could the neighbors have heard only a little weeping and an argument? There must have been a lot of shout...more

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Dec 10, 2012 Michael added it

Shelves: nonfiction-reference, mystery-thriller

[Response revised down to no stars [0 stars = no worth whatsoever] a after reading Morris's A Wilderness of Errors.]

I'll leave my initial reaction below, which was sincere. But after reading Morris's clear-eyed, comprehensive, exhaustive survey of the evidence in the case, one can't think well of Joe McGinniss. Reading the book, I'd felt his authorial hand steering things here and there was was annoyed, but Morris's account makes clear just how much tailoring of the story McGinniss did. Fatal Vi...more

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Feb 28, 2013 Leelabella rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, true-crime, military, 1970s

Fort Bragg, North Carolina 1979
A Green Beret surgeon snaps and slaughters his entire family

1. Pregnant wife dead, bludgeoned to death, stabbed 56 times.
2. Five-year-old Kimberley dead, clubbed in head, stabbed 10 times
3. Two-year-old Kristen dead, stabbed 48 times

Jeffry MacDonald contacted author Joe McGinniss asking him to write a book to help prove his innocence. McGinniss was happy to help. He strongly believed MacDonald was innocent but as he got to know MacDonald better and sifted through...more

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Feb 08, 2012 Mary Ronan Drew rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library-book

Jeffrey MacDonald used to be a household word in the US in the 1970s. He was an MD, an army captain whose wife and two children were murdered. He was in the house when the murders took place and he had minor injuries whereas the attacks on the others were brutal. This is about all that everybody involved can agree on.

MacDonald claimed three hippies did the murder; the initial US Army investigation concluded that MacDonald had killed his own family. He was found not guilty in an army hearing but...more

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Nov 10, 2010 Justin Mitchell rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

After reading The Journalist and the Murderer a few years ago, the name of Joe McGinniss first caught my attention. I discovered he was a pretty well-known nonfiction writer with a tidy little shelf of bestsellers. I told myself I ought to read him someday. After his recent spate of media attention for moving next door to the Palin family (which, though I loathe the Palins and everything they stand for, does strike me as a little creepy), I finally got to this one, the writing of which formed th...more After reading The Journalist and the Murderer a few years ago, the name of Joe McGinniss first caught my attention. I discovered he was a pretty well-known nonfiction writer with a tidy little shelf of bestsellers. I told myself I ought to read him someday. After his recent spate of media attention for moving next door to the Palin family (which, though I loathe the Palins and everything they stand for, does strike me as a little creepy), I finally got to this one, the writing of which formed the basis for The Journalist and the Murderer, and now I can say with full confidence that Joe McGinniss is a classic example of a hack.

Fatal Vision is compared to The Executioner's Song and In Cold Blood on its dust jacket, and I have never read a more undeserved comparison in my life. I have not read Mailer's book, but Truman Capote created a vivid, moving, and thought-provoking piece of art with In Cold Blood. I put Fatal Vision on the opposite end of the true crime spectrum. What McGinniss essentially does with this book is provide around 400 pages of directly-transcribed testimony, interviews, and article passages with about 250 pages of actual writing. He shows no signs of any thought until the last 80 pages, when he hastily cobbles together a rather shallow and presumptuous diagnosis of Jeffrey MacDonald as a sociopath (or psychopath, the two terms mean essentially the same thing), using sources such as Christopher Lasch's brilliant book The Culture of Narcissism, which is not actually about people suffering from narcissistic personality disorder but about how our culture as a whole has narcissistic elements, and Hervey Cleckley's The Mask of Sanity, which, while apparently still relevant, was published in 1941 and so, even at the time this book was written, was not exactly cutting-edge. I recently read Columbine, a book which also dealt with psychopathy and referenced Cleckley's book, to be much more illuminating. The most glaring thing about McGinniss' diagnosis is that, while the author of Columbine had many mental health professionals backing up the diagnosis of Erik Harris as a psychopath, the majority of the people who examined Jeffrey MacDonald made no such diagnosis, leaving me doubtful about McGinniss' take. For the record: I think Jeffrey MacDonald probably killed his family, but McGinniss gave me no deeper understanding of why he did so.

For another true crime book published around the same time as Fatal Vision, and which succeeded in all the ways this one fails, check out Anne Rule's The Stranger Beside Me, a chilling book on Ted Bundy that still haunts me to this day. It's a good example of a book I would place in between the poles of In Cold Blood and Fatal Vision, a book that sticks to the facts, doesn't extrapolate too much from reality, yet still provides a keen insight on what makes a truly evil person tick.(less)

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Jul 19, 2010 Jim Thomsen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

So, after more than 700 pages, it all comes down to one question: "Did Jeffrey MacDonald kill his wife and two kids?" Like author Joe McGinniss, I believe he did — even as I'm outraged that a writer would publicly proclaim so in his own book.

I'm less convinced, however, that a fair reading of the evidence would convict MacDonald in a court of law. Given the lack of forensic proof, the case essentially came down to 1) the fact that MacDonald seems odd and kind of slimy; and 2) it seems hard to b...more So, after more than 700 pages, it all comes down to one question: "Did Jeffrey MacDonald kill his wife and two kids?" Like author Joe McGinniss, I believe he did — even as I'm outraged that a writer would publicly proclaim so in his own book.

I'm less convinced, however, that a fair reading of the evidence would convict MacDonald in a court of law. Given the lack of forensic proof, the case essentially came down to 1) the fact that MacDonald seems odd and kind of slimy; and 2) it seems hard to believe, given the timeline of the night of the 1970 slayings, that anybody else could have done it. I'm not sure either of those could or should trump the legal standard of "reasonable doubt."

But McGinniss does a good job of laying all the facts out there and letting readers nudge themselves toward the same conclusion that he did — that the man he befriended in all likelihood murdered his family. The author's case is exhaustive — probably too much so, and I can see how this book might have been trimmed by 150 pages or so and been just as thorough while being infinitely more readable. (We are bombarded with dozens or pages of ultimately irrelevant MacDonald family history, for example.)

Part of the reason the book is as long as it is, I'm sure, is that "Fatal Vision" is very much a product of its time, when McGinniss' star in the publishing industry was at its peak, when stars got monster-sized advances to pursue their work for as long as they felt it took, and when true-crime writing was going through its golden period. It was also a time when books had few other mediums with which to compete and comprehensive information about the high-profile case simply couldn't be found anywhere else. (Today, McGinniss would be sharply reeled in by cost-conscious editors and "Fatal Vision" likely wouldn't have exceeded 350 pages. I can't say I'm sure that would have been a bad thing.)

As for McGinniss' shocking admission at the end that he believes MacDonald to be guilty. My reactions, in no particular order: 1) Who asked you for your opinion? 2) Are you supposed to be a journalist? and 3) If you got sidetracked into a quest for "truth" out of a journey for "Facts," how can we be sure you haven't withheld information that might not support your belief that MacDonald is guilty? It's easy to believe that McGinniss, who morphed into a holy crusader by book's end, could very well have done so believing that it was the right thing to do.

Ah, well. Fortunately, those ethical issues are well-covered in a later book called "The Journalist And The Murderer," by Janet Malcolm. It's worth a read if you haven't given it one already.

As for "Fatal Vision," I'll recap: Good reporting, decent writing, provocative subject, too long.(less)

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About Joe McGinniss

Joe McGinniss (born 1942) is an American author of nonfiction and novels. He first came to prominence with the best-selling The Selling of the President 1968 which described the marketing of then-presidential candidate Richard Nixon, and has authored 11 works since that time. His latest book is The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin.

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The Miracle of Castel di Sangro: A Tale of Passion and Folly in the Heart of Italy

The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin

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