Biography & Autobiography. Literary Criticism. True Crime. Nonfiction. HTML:True stories of sudden death in the classic collection by a master of American journalism

�??Reporters love murders,�?� Calvin Trillin writes in the introduction to Killings. �??In a pinch, what the lawyers call �??wrongful death�?? will do, particularly if it�??s sudden.�?� Killings, first published in 1984 and expanded for this edition, shows Trillin to be such a reporter, drawn time after time to tales of sudden death. But Trillin is attracted less by violence or police procedure than by the way the fabric of people�??s lives is suddenly exposed when someone comes to an untimely end.  As Trillin says, Killings is �??more about how Americans live than about how some of them die.�?�

These stories, which originally appeared in The New Yorker between 1969 and 2010, are vivid portraits of lives cut short. An upstanding farmer in Iowa finds himself drastically changed by a woman he meets in a cocktail lounge. An eccentric old man in Eastern Kentucky is enraged by the presence of a documentary filmmaker. Two women move to a bucolic Virginia county to find peace, only to end up at war over a shared road. Mexican American families in California hand down a feud from generation to generation. A high-living criminal-defense lawyer in Miami acquires any number of enemies capable of killing him. 

Stark and compassionate, deeply observed and beautifully written, Killings is �??that rarity, reportage as art�?� (William Geist, The New York Times Book Review).

Praise for Killings

�??Riveting tales of murder and mayhem. . . . [Calvin] Trillin is a superb writer, with a magical ability to turn even the most mundane detail into spellbinding wonder. Armed with this wealth of material, he utterly shines. Every piece here is a gem.�?��??The Seattle Times

�??What Mr. Trillin does so well, what makes Killings literature, is the way he pictures the lives that were interrupted by the murders. Even the most ordinary life makes a terrible noise . . . when it�??s broken off.�?��??Anatole Broyard, The New York Times

�??Fascinating, troubling . . . In each of these stories is the basis of a Dostoevskian novel.�?��??Edward Abbey, Chicago Sun-Times

�??The stories . . . are unforgettable. They leave us, finally, with the awareness of the unknowable opacity of the human heart.�?��??Bruce Colman, San Francisco Chronicle

�??[Trillin] writes brilliantly. . . . These stories still hold up, as classics.�?��??The Buffalo News

�??In his artful ability to conjure up a whole life and a whole world, Trillin comes as close to achieving the power of a Chekhov short story as can anyone whose material is so implacably tied to fact.�?��??Frederick Iseman, Harper�??s Bazaar

�??I have a book for you true-crime addicts if you�??re caught up on the podcast Serial, the cascade on TV of 48 Hours and Dateline NBC episodes. . . . It�??s time to pick up Calvin Trillin�??s Killings.�?��??The New York Times Book Review

�??Well-crafted and thoughtfully composed, lacking judgment and admonishment, these are a true piece of quality journalism, which clearly continues to captivate audiences.�?��??Library Journal