The Crime of Sheila McGough
Janet Malcolm
Granta £8.99, pp176
We weave an unsteady path between truth and practicality. If we told the whole truth and nothing but the truth every time we spoke, we'd never finish a sentence. Observing this unspoken rule is fine in conversation but applying it to the legal system means that the innocent can be crushed in the machine. Janet Malcolm, author of The Journalist and the Murderer, received a letter from Sheila McGough detailing her wrongful conviction for fraud. Intrigued, she listened to McGough's story and, in this book, documents her journalistic investigations into the case. But, eventually, like the law courts, she had to extricate herself from a sorry tale of conmen and crooked salesmen without proving McGough's innocence. Malcolm writes eloquently of the difficulty that journalism and the justice system have in establishing the truth.
Heartland
Neil Cross
Scribner £7.99, pp336
'How a lonely child,' screams the cover, 'came to fall in love with a monster.' Such sensationalism readies the reader for a childhood memoir as horrifying as A Child Called It or Angela's Ashes. But Cross's achievement is more subtle than the cover suggests. He recreates the voice of a child of divorced parents, and the playground struggles faced by many seven-year-olds. Yes, Neil becomes a Mormon, but he is allowed to leave the church when he wishes. Yes, his stepfather beats the dog, but he stops when they move to the country. The striking feature of the book is not Neil's terrible childhood but the clarity with which he shows how unbearable the world can seem to little boys everywhere.
The Lost Kingdoms of Africa
Jeffrey Tayler
Abacus £7.99, pp288
The catastrophe of the Twin Towers still reverberates throughout the world. The power of poor, anti-Western Muslims became apparent that day and, as a result, countries such as Afghanistan came to international attention. But there is a part of the Muslim world that still receives little coverage. In West Africa, countries such as Niger, Chad and Mali are too dangerous and full of ethnic conflict for most journalists to visit. But Tayler felt that, after 11 September, nobody could afford to be ignorant of these places and decided to explore them. His record conveys the heat and turmoil of the region, as he meets Arabs delighted to encounter an open-minded American, as well as hostile people. He sees poverty, optimism, corruption and despair and writes with insight about them. It's an engaging account of his journey and of more besides.
