Skip to main content

How Fiction Reflects the Reality of Crime

A broadcast of a panel held at New York University in April called "Cops and Writers: Crime and Punishment in Literature and Real Life." The panel, sponsored by the PEN American Center and The New York Review of Books, features police officials and writers, including crime writer Walter Mosley and author Joyce Carol Oates. The panel focuses on the fine line between crime fiction and crime reality. The writers talk about the fact that crime novelists generally draw on real criminals and real crimes to create their characters and plot. While these crime novels often seem implausible to readers, they say, what happens in the real world of crime is often even more unbelievable.

42:52

Other segments from the episode on August 9, 1994

Fresh Air with Terry Gross, August 9, 1994: Interview with Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, Linda Wolfe, Richard Condon, Mike Sheehan, Edwin Torres, and Evan Hunter; Review of Julia Blackburn's book…

Transcript

Transcript currently not available.

Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.

You May Also like

Did you know you can create a shareable playlist?

Advertisement

Recently on Fresh Air Available to Play on NPR

37:24

How Jared Kushner is mixing U.S. diplomacy with his billion-dollar business

Journalist DEXTER FILKINS, a staff writer for The New Yorker. His new piece, "Jared Kushner’s Dollar Diplomacy," looks at Trump’s son-in-law’s growing role in American foreign policy while his private-equity firm is backed by billions of dollars from governments in the Middle East. (INTERVIEW BY TONYA MOSLEY) (THIS INTERVIEW CONTINUES INTO THE SECOND HALF OF THE SHOW).

52:30

Singer/actor Danielle Brooks says 'gratitude should always lead the way'

Actress DANIELLE BROOKS. She’s known for her roles as Tastee in Orange in the New Black and Sophia in the Broadway revival and film adaptations of The Color Purple. She co-stars in the new film If I Go Will They Miss Me. (INTERVIEW CONTINUES INTO THE SECOND HALF OF THE SHOW).

There are more than 22,000 Fresh Air segments.

Let us help you find exactly what you want to hear.
Just play me something
Your Queue

Would you like to make a playlist based on your queue?

Generate & Share View/Edit Your Queue