A New Take on Michael Jackson

While “Who Killed Michael Jackson?” may be dominating the headlines now, but when the coroner’s report is revealed, what will we remember about the King of Pop? Sasha Frere-Jones, pop-music critic at The New Yorker, is writing a short book on Michael Jackson, to be published by Ecco. And, he’s finding inspiration from unlikely places: from A Lover’s Discourse by Roland Barthes, and from Christopher Hitchens’ Why Orwell Matters. “I want to leave the controversy behind, the vitiligo and the drugs and Blanket and Paris,” he told The New Yorker. “I am interested in what he did that was different, how he recontextualized the past, how he changed the rules.”