Primitives: 15 Gothic Street, Episode One by Joe McGinniss

Description

Imagine “Law & Order” set in Lake Wobegon: murder, shootings, arson, drug deals, theft, and more, all taking place against a backdrop of small-town charm and civility. This is the world of “15 Gothic Street,” a new series by bestselling author Joe McGinniss (“The Selling of the President,” “Fatal Vision,” “Going to Extremes”) about crime and courtroom justice in a picture-perfect corner of New England. Unlike prime-time television, however, everything that happens at “15 Gothic Street” is all too real.

Written by a master of the true crime narrative, the series tells the story of life in and out of an American courthouse over the course of a tumultuous yet typical year. In this absorbing first episode, McGinniss follows a lurid case of statutory rape involving the beloved director of a community theater and the young protégés he allegedly abused for years on end. Could this devoted family man really have committed such vile crimes and gotten away with it for so long? Were these young women on the witness stand telling the truth or were they, in the words of the defense attorney, merely vindictive “little actresses”? McGinniss sat in the courtroom day after day as the disturbing testimony piled up.

Unsavory as it was, this case was just one of many gritty dramas that play out daily in the Hampshire County Courthouse. This stately granite building sits at the center of beautiful Northampton, Massachusetts, home of Smith College and Calvin Coolidge and aptly nicknamed “Paradise City.” But even in paradise, there’s trouble. The worst of these troubles find their way to 15 Gothic Street, where they are laid bare every day, Monday through Friday. McGinniss’s yearlong odyssey through this land of miscreants, lawyers, judges, clerks, reporters, and opinionated locals is proof that bad behavior always thrives in the places where you least expect it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Over the course of forty years, Joe McGinniss has written dozens of magazine articles and published twelve books, eleven of them nonfiction. In every decade of his unconventional career, one of his books has become a classic: “The Selling of the President,” “Going to Extremes,” “Fatal Vision,” and “The Miracle of Castel di Sangro.” He is also the author of “The Dream Team,” “Blind Faith,” “Cruel Doubt,” and “The Last Brother.”