On Michael Jackson, Margo Jefferson
On Michael Jackson, Margo Jefferson
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On Michael Jackson

Author: Margo Jefferson

Narrator: Andrea Johnson

Unabridged: 3 hr 47 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/10/2006


Synopsis

Michael Jackson was once universally acclaimed as a song-and-dance man of genius; Wacko Jacko is now, more often than not, dismissed for his bizarre race and gender transformations and confounding antics, even as he is commonly reviled for the child molestation charges twice brought against him. Whence the weirdness and alleged criminality? How to account for Michael Jackson’s rise and fall? In On Michael Jackson—an at once passionate, incisive, and bracing work of cultural analysis—Pulitzer Prize–winning critic for The New York Times Margo Jefferson brilliantly unravels the complexities of one of the most enigmatic figures of our time.

Who is Michael Jackson and what does it mean to call him a “What Is It”? What do P. T. Barnum, Peter Pan, and Edgar Allan Poe have to do with our fascination with Jackson? How did his curious Victorian upbringing and his tenure as a child prodigy on the “chitlin’ circuit” inform his character and multiplicity of selves? How is Michael Jackson’s celebrity related to the outrageous popularity of nineteenth-century minstrelsy? What is the perverse appeal of child stars for grown-ups and what is the price of such stardom for these children and for us? What uncanniness provoked Michael Jackson to become “Alone of All His Race, Alone of All Her Sex,” while establishing himself as an undeniably great performer with neo-Gothic, dandy proclivities and a producer of visionary music videos? What do we find so unnerving about Michael Jackson’s presumed monstrosity? In short, how are we all of us implicated?

In her stunning first book, Margo Jefferson gives us the incontrovertible lowdown on call-him-what-you-wish; she offers a powerful reckoning with a quintessential, richly allusive signifier of American society and popular culture.

About The Author

The winner of a Pulitzer Prize for criticism, Margo Jefferson previously served as book and arts critic for Newsweek and the New York Times. Her writing has appeared in, among other publications, VogueNew York MagazineThe Nation, and Guernica. Her memoir, Negroland, received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography. She is also the author of On Michael Jackson and is a professor of writing at Columbia University School of the Arts.Andrea Johnson is a freelance photographer specializing in wine and travel. She has covered many of the world's wine regions, and her photographs are regularly featured in publications such as Wine SpectatorVIASunset, the San Francisco Chronicle, and National Geographic. Her previous books include photography for Rick Steves's Europe Through the Back Door series, and her commercial clients are many of the premier pinot noir producers worldwide.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kat on July 26, 2015

"Michael Jackson speaks to and for the monstrous child in us all." Easily the best thing I've read that tries to figure out Michael Jackson. The right mix of sympathy and query, that doesn't come up with an answer (you can't), turning the question back on us instead. There are some factual slips (hey......more

Goodreads review by Elizabeth on August 12, 2007

Terrific premise; disappointing execution. I think it's a great idea to examine Michael Jackson - as a persona, performer and phenomenon - from a multifaceted cultural perspective (including the histories of entertainment, race, family culture, legal precedent and more), which is exactly what this b......more

Goodreads review by Mary on January 31, 2020

If you’re looking for an in-depth look at Michael Jackson, this isn’t it, and I don’t think the book is particularly well-written. In fact, the author seems to know so little about Michael Jackson that you really wonder how she could have been so bold as to have written a book - about the length of......more

Goodreads review by Christian on February 10, 2021

Took a class with Jefferson last year and her writing does not disappoint. Brilliant, insightful, authoritative and thorough do not begin to do this book justice. I’m not super knowledgeable or familiar with Jackson’s career or controversies (aside from Leaving Neverland) and this book read like an......more

Goodreads review by Kathleen on June 30, 2013

Michael Jackson is a fascinating artist and personality. Unfortunately this book did not do justice to him or his work. Fairly disappointing.......more


Quotes

"Stimulating.... Incisive, intelligent.... Engaging, well written and consistently on target." —The New York Times
 
"Jefferson writes...with elegance and attitude....One closes the book hungry to hear her take on other talented but troubled celebrities."  —The Washington Post
 
"Sparkling....Eloquent and provocative.... Watching Margo Jefferson's mind at work is as pleasurable and thrilling as seeing Michael Jackson dance."  —O, The Oprah Magazine
 
“Hers is a dazzling act of sustained vivacity and wisdom. Margo Jefferson brilliantly illuminates both Michael Jackson’s psyche and his art, giving us in the process a fascinating broader picture of American pop culture. Shockingly, Jackson turns out to be as representative as he is singular."  —Ann Douglas, author of Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s and The Feminization of American Culture
 
“Margo Jefferson, an unfailingly shrewd and eloquent cultural critic, finds in Michael Jackson a paradigm for probing the ambitions, desperations, triumphs, and sacrifices of an artist who stakes everything on a crown. Beyond palace intrigue, she explicates the meaning of show business masks, of racial and social determinants, of spectacle on stage and in the courtroom. She is compelling.” —Gary Giddins, author of Weather Bird and Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams