On Michael Jackson

Margo Jefferson

Jan 2006 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Andrea Johnson

About this audiobook

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.

Ratings and reviews

How dare anybody tarnish Michael's name and talk badly about him he was the nicest person I knew him he was a sweetheart he would never hurt a single person he wouldn't hurt a fly so in my opinion this book sucks trying to talk bad on the King of Pop the person who did so much for the world he must his fans he loved his friends he loved his kids he loved everybody this book pisses me off the new man who reads it don't believe any of the trash that's written about this sweetheart genius sexy man

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, Vogue, New York Magazine, The 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 Spectator, VIA, Sunset, 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.