Untouchable

January 1, 2013
When former Rolling Stone senior editor Sullivan (The Miracle Detective: An Investigation of Holy Visions, 2004, etc.) was commissioned to write about the circumstances surrounding Michael Jackson's shocking death in 2009, the author quickly grasped that only a book would do the bizarre story justice. Rather than write a standard rags-to-riches celebrity bio, which the Jackson family's humble origins might actually have warranted, Sullivan begins in the months after Jackson's 2003 trial for sexual abuse of a child. This, it turns out, is as good a starting point as any to look back on Jackson's "strange life" (as the subtitle puts it), his career, his legal travails, his marriages and fatherhood, and more importantly, his fascinatingly enigmatic character. As he details Jackson's late-life sojourns with his three children to Dubai, Ireland, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, Sullivan also flashes back, in a couple of perfectly paced sections, to the child-molestation allegations in 1993 and 2003. He reveals a man who was not the pedophilic, transgendered, transracial freak the media thought he was, but a highly intelligent and sensitive perfectionist, more self-aware--and ashamed--of his surgically altered looks than the public ever knew. Sullivan's choices do less justice to Jackson's rise, his early life, and the development of his musical and dancing genius. While he admirably explicates the criminal case against the doctor who administered the potent pharmaceutical mix that killed Jackson, the author wastes too much time and detail on the soap-operatic legal battles of Jackson's avaricious survivors and hangers-on. Few of the supporting players come off smelling like roses, but Sullivan's sensitive portrait of his main subject is a good start toward explaining and rehabilitating a lonely genius who was poorly understood in his lifetime.

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January 1, 2012

As the subtitle suggests, this book by a former Rolling Stone contributing editor and writer recounts not only Jackson's in-the-spotlight upbringing and the controversies of his adult life but the death itself, including the public's reaction, the estate battles, and the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray. Seems to aim for balance.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2013

Sullivan's (The Miracle Detective) examination of Michael Jackson's final years (and what exactly made him so strange) is the kind of authoritative, definitive book that dares its readers to peek ahead to the final pages--even though the ending is already well known. The book begins with a damning anecdote that underscores how manipulative and greedy Jackson's family could be. Sullivan also reveals how the pop star wanted to give up music for an acting career--he wanted to play Spider-Man on the big screen--and that his finest role may have been as a father. Sullivan doesn't ignore the charges of pedophilia, but his take isn't damning. Ultimately, he tells an objective, thorough story that makes it feel like the author shadowed Jackson for decades. (He didn't.) VERDICT Some of Jackson's most ardent fans have been up in arms about Sullivan's latest take on the pop icon, and this book doesn't ignore the superstar's blemishes. For everyone but the most devoted, this is the Michael Jackson book the public wanted to read when he was still alive. Surprisingly, it makes him a more sympathetic figure than readers might expect.--Rob Morast, Norfolk, VA

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2011

Originally scheduled for December 2010 and featured in Prepub Exploded (June 17), this study by Rolling Stone contributing editor Sullivan has been moved to June 2011, the two-year anniversary of Jackson's death. With a six-city tour.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.