The Crime Lady: Events for SCOUNDREL, and More
Dear TCL Readers,
2022 is, shall we say, off to an eventful start. For me, I began the year in isolation, recovering from Omicron. It was technically a mild case; it was the opposite of fun. I am well now, so much so that I ended January in Costa Rica, truly one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been lucky enough to visit. The photograph above was taken at Playa Ventanas, but there were so many magical experiences. I know I will return to this country (which also, by the way, takes Covid protocols very seriously.)
Here’s one more photo before we get to the business section of this newsletter:
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Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts To Set Him Free will be published on February 22, 2022. Which is to say, in a little more than two weeks from now. The finished copies have come in and they look gorgeous:
The advance praise and attention continues to roll in. Amazon named Scoundrel one of its Best Books of the Month in Biographies & Memoirs. Bethanne Patrick at the Los Angeles Times named the book one of its 10 Best for February, saying: “Weinman, rightly acclaimed for “The Real Lolita,” again examines the misogyny inherent in true-crime culture, then and now.” The Seattle Times’ culture critic Moira McDonald highlighted the book in her most anticipated books column. Other anticipated lists that include Scoundrel are from CBC Books, Town & Country, InsideHook, Bustle, The Line-Up, The Millions, BookPage, Literary Hub, BookRiot, Pajiba, and CrimeReads.
EVENTS
The full event schedule has not been finalized, with more dates to be added, but I’m very pleased to announce several in-person and virtual events:
First up, on Tuesday, February 22 at 7 PM, is an in-person, ticketed event in conversation with Alexis Coe at St. Ann’s Church of the Holy Trinity (157 Montague Street in downtown Brooklyn) hosted by Books Are Magic. Register at this link. The talk will also be streamed for those who cannot attend in-person.
Two nights later, on Thursday, February 24 at 7 PM, I’ll be in conversation with Casey Cep for a virtual event hosted by Politics & Prose. Register at this link.
On Friday, February 25 at noon, the Syosset Public Library is hosting a lunchtime event. Details here.
And on Wednesday, March 2, Mysterious Bookshop is hosting an in-person event with me at 6 PM. I’ll be in conversation with Abbott Kahler and Gilbert King. More details here.
Look forward to seeing you there, whether in-person or virtually!
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OTHER WORK
The Toronto Star asked me to write about Rosemary Sullivan’s The Betrayal of Anne Frank, a very strange book that purports to be a “cold case investigation” into who bore responsibility for betraying the Franks, as well as the van Pels family and Fritz Pfeffer, to the Nazis in 1944. The book had a splashy publicity rollout (including an embargoed publication, I myself had to sign an NDA before reading it) and is now so heavily disputed that publishers in the Netherlands and Germany are either pulling the book outright or considering it.
I, however, was less interested in writing a news story or a straight book review, but in thinking through how once more, Anne Frank’s humanity appears to be overlooked and exploited once more, as it has for decades. Taking my cues from previous and forthcoming work by Cynthia Ozick, Dara Horn, and Ruth Franklin, I came up with something that I hope would last longer than a news cycle or two. And much to my surprise, the essay landed on A1 of the Sunday, January 23 edition of the Star.
Finally, in more lighthearted fare, I had such fun chatting about Goodfellas on the You Are Good podcast with Sarah Marshall and Alex Steed. There will be more podcast appearances in my immediate future.
I’ll be sending the next newsletter right around publication day. Lots more to come, that’s for sure.
Until then, I remain,
The Crime Lady