Episode 537: Pamela Colloff's Now-or-Never Moment with 'Catch the Devil'
About this episode
Pamela Colloff discusses her book 'Catch the Devil' and the complexities of true crime narratives.
"I feel like before I have the confidence to write in the way that I want to write, where I really own the material, I have to spend so much time with people. I will say at the outset, once I walk someone through what it's going to involve after they say yes to talking to me, I'll say I'm going to be around a lot and you're going to get sick of me," says Pamela Colloff, author of Catch the Devil. Today's guest, I mean, wow, from the bottom of the diaphragm up, wow. It's Pamela Colloff. You know her from her National Magazine Award winning work for Texas Monthly and ProPublica/The New York Times Magazine. She's THE premier investigative reporter in the country and she's now the author of Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast. It's published by Knopf. This book upends what you think a true crime story is about where the true villain isn't a person at all. It chronicles, among others, Paul Skalnik, a jailhouse snitch, whose non-credible testimony places numerous men on death row, Jim Dailey, in particular, and Pamela takes us through this riveting narrative and punishing commentary on capital punishment and why Florida seems hellbent on…
More episodes of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O'Meara
- Episode 536: The Blood, Flesh, and Messiness of Human Existence with Matthew Wolfe
- Episode 535: Alex Ronan's Masterclass in the Depth of Reporting
- Episode 534: Shoeleather Reporting and Exploring the Riddles of America with Wil Haygood
- Episode 533: Susan Orlean on Her 'Best' Rejection, Coming Up with Ideas, and Letting the Reporting Meander
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