It’s fair to say that Michael Finkel had a pretty dramatic 2002. He went from being an award-winning journalist working at the prestigious New York Times to a publicly disgraced pariah whose career was suddenly in the shitter! How? In a story about child slavery on West African cocoa plantations, he had tried to pass off a composite character as a real person and got found out. Then, in a call from an Oregon paper that he assumed was about his scandalous breach of journalistic ethics, he was asked about the murders of a woman and three children committed by New York Times journalist Michael Finkel! Whaaaaaaat?!
The old adage “truth is stranger than fiction” certainly applies to this book! True Story is the bizarre and thoroughly compelling account of how Michael Finkel fell from grace and then immediately got wrapped up in the case of Chris Longo, the young Jehovah’s Witness who strangled his family in December 2001, fled to Mexico, where he told people that he was Finkel, before being caught by the FBI and brought back to the States to face justice.
The book is an original blend of memoir and true crime masterfully written in the nonfiction novel style pioneered in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. Finkel’s scandal/confession/mea culpa though, while interesting in itself and adding a unique dimension to the narrative, only takes up a relatively short part of the book as it could be covered much more succinctly than Longo’s crimes, the latter obviously being the main draw anyway. I can see why it was included as both Finkel and Longo are revealed as liars albeit to very different degrees. Finkel’s lies were minor and benign and he’s clearly learned from his mistakes while Longo’s lies led to the deaths of four people.
Finkel’s portrait of Longo is utterly mesmerising. A charming and likeable man with a magnetic personality, Longo is also a narcissistic pathological liar who is acutely sensitive to how people perceived him – he had to look like a success to everyone, especially his wife Maryjane – with a complex about his intelligence (though the reader can see his limitations from the direct quotes from his letters showing misspellings, poor grammar and a pretentious use of complex words to impress his audience).
Longo was completely incapable of living within his means. Like a car crash in slow motion, you can’t turn away as his failing construction company’s finances and his own out-of-control spending leads him to compound lies with more lies before escalating to stealing cars and counterfeiting cheques. Things get worse and his behaviour becomes more erratic: he cheats on his wife, the pressure of constantly hiding the increasing chaos from family and friends begets more lies, more theft, more fraud, causing him to up stakes and flee with his family across America, desperately trying to stay one step ahead of creditors and law enforcement… until it finally all fell apart and overwhelmed him.
Longo on the stand during the trial is the most gripping section as we see his true nature emerge. I found the unvarnished audacity with which Longo brazenly lied to be completely breathtaking, revealing himself to be this irredeemable, warped, almost inhuman creature. Not just during the trial but afterwards too, the way he continued trying to futilely manipulate Finkel and reality with more and more lies, despite their contradictions.
There wasn’t much I disliked about the book but it definitely dragged a bit in the middle. There’s a part where Finkel and Longo fall out and waiting for Finkel to win back Longo’s favour was tedious. And, while the final months leading up to the murders was entrancing, a lot of Longo’s bio was boring – his courtship with Maryjane, building his business, his everyday life; very banal stuff.
Otherwise, True Story was an excellent and remarkable read - a morbidly fascinating and memorable tale of a deeply disturbing criminal, a horrific crime and the flawed but penitent journalist documenting it all who was inadvertently caught in the maelstrom. True crime fans will love this and I can easily see this becoming a classic of the genre up there with In Cold Blood.