Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Ronan Farrow exposes serial abusers and a cabal of powerful interests hell-bent on covering up the truth, at any cost.
... absorbing ... is mainly about these women’s stories, and the dueling efforts to suppress them and to bring them to light, though Farrow knows how to leaven the narrative, slipping in scenes of the occasional domestic squabble between him and his partner, the former Obama speechwriter Jon Lovett, as well as offering some necessary comic relief. Farrow can be disarmingly wry, even when writing about another shadowy psyops firm spying on him and other journalists ... there are some hopeful threads, too.
... unfolds like a classic noir. He opens on a suspicious conversation between a pair of criminals, and then whisks the reader into his own world as it was then — surprisingly bleak, and mottled with disappointment ... Journalism like Farrow’s — fearless, exhaustive, even reckless in its disregard for personal or professional consequences — is the only way to begin to correct this problem...Farrow might be able to restore some faith in journalism, but restoring trust in the wide range of institutions implicated in these heinous scandals lies beyond the reach of a single book. But he does what he can — he bears witness, and offers a harrowing portrait of sin and depravity in the bleak tones they merit. If there is any lesson in noir, it’s that the darkness is always all around you.
Farrow...prove[s] that money and power really do run the world. It’s a chilling revelation that further explains why even the most successful and influential of Weinstein’s victims could be silenced: The Hollywood super-producer had more than his own considerable resources at his disposal ... The reader comes away with the understanding that when a person speaks out, she faces not just men like Weinstein, but also a larger network that uses the same weapons to silence, intimidate and shame ... What sets Farrow apart is his proximity to those in power...He’s both a dogged reporter and an insider who can offer a glimpse into the halls of power ... o Farrow’s credit, he uses his privilege to elevate the voices of survivors ... Farrow understands that it’s important to remember who these stories are really about: the women who have risked everything to speak truth to power ... 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.
