Ephemeris of the Mind (Book Review) Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators
Time to read: 3 min read
Book Cover
In the end, the courage of women can't be stamped out. And stories - the big ones, the true ones - can be caught but never killed.
Review
This book is investigative journalism at its best; it’s a story of a journalist uncovering a conspiracy to silence sexual assault survivors in order to protect some of the most powerful names in the entertainment industry, namely Harvey Weinstein. While Weinstein was a main focus in the book, Farrow also widens the scope on various other predators and how they silenced their victims with NDAs and payoffs. The book first covers how the story started breaking, with women coming forward despite personal threats to give their accounts and prevent others from enduring what they had to go through. Farrow then details the various tactics the perpetrators tried to use in order to kill the story and how despite the opposition, the story still broke. Finally, Farrow documents the fallout of the story for the predators and the social impact the burgeoning movement has had.
The story feels outrageous and reads almost like a thriller; it involves serious conspiracies from the Israeli intelligence group Black Cube, legal threats from some of the most renowned lawyers such as David Boies and Lisa Bloom, and comedic relief from the InfoTactic private investigator duo. One of my favourite aspects of the book is reading about the inner politics of news organizations; it details how some organizations, such as AMI and National Enquirer weaponized news to blackmail people (such as Jeff Bezos) and how some organizations, such as The New Yorker, published Farrow’s story despite external pressure. This book was fast-paced and immensely entertaining to read. The book was also very intimate, as Farrow documents his own upbringing (his father is Woody Allen and his mother is Mia Farrow) as well as the toll of reporting this story on the relationship with his partner Jonathan.
While this book is no Fire and Fury, Farrow does attract some criticism on potentially obscuring the truth in order to present a better narrative. Indeed, many of his claims, from Hillary Clinton’s campaign being complacent in the covering up of the scandals to NBC trying to kill the story from within, aren’t backed with actual evidence and can feel much like reading a conspiracy theory. Despite this, there were ample sources and evidence for the main story, that of women being preyed upon by powerful men in the entertainment industry and said women standing up to their predators.
Conclusion
An excellent work of investigative journalism.