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Malcolm on the Stand | Online Only | n+1 | Max Abelson

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She is cutting, wary, funny, and wise. Her style is what I wish I had instead of the chipper inner voice I’m stuck with. Nothing in Malcolm’s writing is dull or amiss unless she’s quoting somebody else. Her lines put me in mind of the painter Agnes Martin—everything so even and tight.

Janet Malcolm: The Last Interview and Other Conversations. Introduction by Katie Roiphe. Melville House, 2022. In the few times Janet Malcolm let other reporters interview her, she did what she could to keep herself safe. “Doing this interview by email gives me a chance to think of answers to your questions,” Malcolm wrote to the Believer in 2004. “If we did it in person, I might just look at you in blank helplessness.” She invited a Paris Review interviewer over to her Gramercy Park apartment seven years later, but didn’t answer the questions until typing on her desktop Mac. Malcolm, who…

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