The Genius of Janet Malcolm

Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher are joined by writer and editor Eve Sneider to discuss her new book, The Absent Woman: The Genius of Janet Malcolm, the first biography of the legendary New Yorker journalist. A reticent public figure, Malcolm is best known for her classic works of nonfiction, including Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession, In the Freud Archives, The Journalist and the Murderer, and The Silent Woman, as well as for a landmark lawsuit that one of her subjects brought against her. In her book, Sneider uncovers Malcolm's private life — her childhood as a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, her college years, her partners, her relationship to her work — and grapples with the immense literary legacy that she left behind.