Linda Fairstein

• Born: May 5, 1947
• Place of Birth: Mount Vernon, New York

Contribution

As an attorney, Linda Fairstein worked with rape and violent assault victims in New York City. From 1974 until 2002, she worked under District Attorney Frank Morgenthau, becoming chief of the Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit in 1976. During Fairstein’s tenure, she led prosecution teams in many high-profile cases, notably the so-called preppy murder of Jennifer Levin and the beating and rape of the woman known to the media as the Central Park jogger. In the course of her work, Fairstein radically altered the manner in which rape cases were investigated and tried, stressing forensics, pioneering the use of DNA evidence, seeking confessions from perpetrators, and thoroughly questioning victims. A member of many legal and nonprofit organizations advocating for the rights of victims (including the Mount Sinai Hospital Friends of the Rape Crisis Intervention Program, New York Women’s Agenda Domestic Violence Committee, Governor Cuomo’s Task Force on Rape, and President Clinton’s Violence Against Women Advisory Council), Fairstein has been in demand as a lecturer on a variety of topics related to violence, particularly violence against women.

For her efforts as an advocate, Fairstein garnered considerable local and national recognition and served as the model for the character of a prosecutor on several television shows and films. Among dozens of honors she has collected are a Federal Bar Council Award for distinguished public service, a University of Virginia Distinguished Alumna Award, inclusion among the American Bar Association’s Outstanding Young Lawyers; Glamour’s and New Woman’s 1993 Woman of the Year Awards, National Women’s Political Caucus 1994 Achievement Award, Boy Scouts of America 1994 Distinguished Woman of the Year Award, Soroptomists 1996 International Woman of Achievement Award, and the National Conference of Christians and Jews 1996 Humanitarian Award. As one of the United States’ premier experts on sexual and domestic violence, Fairstein has served as a criminal justice consultant to the major television networks and many cable news programs.

Fairstein’s first book, the nonfictional Sexual Violence: Our War Against Rape, appeared in 1993. With a recap of her career as a prosecutor, a history of public perceptions and treatment of rape cases, and harrowing descriptions of actual crimes, Sexual Violence was tabbed as a New York Times notable book of the year. The book achieved widespread acclaim for its timeliness in dealing with a long-neglected subject and its author’s passion and dedication to her cause.

After the success of her book, Fairstein turned to fiction. Her Alex Cooper thrillers—starting with Final Jeopardy (1996)—are essentially extensions of the author’s day job. Heroine Cooper resembles Fairstein physically, mentally, and emotionally. Though sometimes taken to task critically for her lack of a distinctive writing style (characterized by a tendency to overexplain police procedures, to lecture about certain topics, and to put wooden dialogue into the mouths of characters), Fairstein has nonetheless achieved acclaim among readers and critics alike for including well-researched information about New York landmarks and lesser-known historical or geographic features. Fairstein’s plots are typically convoluted, involving dozens of characters and many scene changes. Virtually all of Fairstein’s novels have achieved best-seller status. Her fourth entry in the Alex Cooper series, The Deadhouse (2001), was nominated for a Macavity Award as best novel. Her later novels include Killer Look (2016), Deadfall (2017), and Blood Oath (2019). She also wrote the Devlin Quick series, which is made up of Into the Lion's Den (2016), Digging for Trouble (2017), and Secrets from the Deep (2018).

After years of literary success, Fairstein's publisher, Dutton, dropped her as a client in 2019 after her role in the wrongful conviction of five young Black and Hispanic boys in 1989 resurfaced with the Netflix miniseries When They See Us (2019). Dubbed the Central Park Five, the boys were accused of raping a woman jogging in the park but were acquitted in 2002 after spending years in prison. Fairstein was also asked to resign from the boards of several nonprofit organizations. In 2020, she filed a defamation lawsuit against Netflix and the series director, Ava DuVernay. The case settled in 2024 with Netflix donating one million dollars to the Innocence Project.

Biography

Linda A. Fairstein was born of Jewish heritage into an upper-middle-class family on May 5, 1947, in Mount Vernon, New York. She was the daughter of physician Samuel Johnson Fairstein and registered nurse Alice Atwell Fairstein. An eager early reader, Fairstein began writing in childhood and was torn between careers in literature, ballet, and public service as a youth.

Fairstein attended Vassar College, graduating in 1969 with a bachelor’s degree in English literature. She afterward entered the University of Virginia School of Law, acquiring her jurisprudence degree in 1972. She immediately joined the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and soon was named an assistant district attorney. Fairstein succeeded Leslie Crocker Snyder as head of the district attorney’s Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit in 1976 and served in that capacity until leaving in 2002 to concentrate on writing, lecturing, and serving as a consultant in her specialty. Fairstein, in 1987, married Justin N. Feldman—former senior partner in a Manhattan law firm who helped run Robert F. Kennedy’s 1964 United States Senate campaign—becoming stepmother to Feldman’s three children.

Fairstein’s tenure with the District Attorney’s Office was frequently marked by controversy because of her penchant for inserting herself into high-profile cases, for claiming credit for legal innovations she did not instigate, and for speaking publicly about them—though she, without question, did make many inroads into the way rape and domestic violence cases are prosecuted. All these elements were perceived as indications of her ambition for higher office. This perception was exacerbated when she was interviewed in 1993 as a candidate to become U.S. attorney general under President Bill Clinton. Fairstein also feuded with her predecessor, Snyder, with office rivals, feminists, and victims’ rights groups. While still employed by the District Attorney's Office, she was widely criticized for writing about some of her major cases, thinly disguising them as fiction. Additionally, several of her unit’s most successful cases—notably involving the woman known as the Central Park jogger—were eventually overturned, and their convictions were vacated.

Despite such setbacks and occasional public scorn, Fairstein has moved forward. She published the well-received Sexual Violence and followed up with her first novel, Final Jeopardy, in which she introduced protagonist Alexandra Cooper. She has continued to add to the popular Cooper series—virtually all series novels have been on domestic or international best-seller lists, and the fourth was nominated for the Macavity Award—and has also contributed to a collaborative novel, I’d Kill for That (2004), with , Anne Perry, , and seven other female writers. With publisher Otto Penzler, Fairstein edited the nonfictional The Best American Crime Reporting 2007 (2007).

Analysis

Linda Fairstein’s alter ego is her protagonist, Alexandra “Alex” Cooper, a younger, thinner, blonder, but no less outspoken or dedicated version of the author. Like Fairstein, the workaholic Alex heads Manhattan’s Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit and is a passionate advocate for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. Alex typically works with a pair of professional law enforcement officers: hard-as-nails detective Mike Chapman of the NYPD Homicide Squad and Lieutenant Mercer Wallace of the NYPD Special Victims Squad. The prosecutor and the police officers spend considerable time together on and off the job and, during the series, become staunch friends. The three major protagonists are likable, making it easy for readers to root for them as they ferret out the scummy, devious criminals who inhabit Fairstein’s novels.

Alex Cooper debuted in Final Jeopardy; the title refers to Alex, Mike, and Mercer’s habit when working cases to place bets on which of them will come up with the question for the last answer on the popular television quiz show Jeopardy! (1964-1975, 1978-1979, beginning in 1984). With this novel, Fairstein established several conventions that have been followed in later novels in the series. First, she tells each story in the first-person, past tense, from Alex Cooper’s viewpoint (not a surprising decision since Alex reflects the impact and result of everyday occurrences from Fairstein’s thirty-year career as a prosecutor). Second, each of her stories contains at least one major thread surrounding a sex crime or a crime with a possible sexual subtext (a requirement, given the restrictions of the protagonist’s profession) and several lesser crimes, which crisscross in numerous and complicated plot twists before the final denouement. Third, each story offers Fairstein the opportunity to expound on New York’s historical or geographic features, with occasional excursions to the author’s (and protagonist’s) vacation home on Martha’s Vineyard. Fourth, every story will provide insights into police and legal procedures. Fifth, all stories will eventually put the heroine in peril—a departure from Fairstein’s actual experiences during her time with the District Attorney’s Office.

The first three of these conventions—the positive characterization of the main protagonist from her own viewpoint, the concentration on crimes of a sexual nature (while continually reminding readers of the heavy caseload under which sex crimes prosecutors labor), and a focus on local or regional landmarks in the course of an investigation—are the strongest hallmarks of Fairstein’s work. In the second novel in the series, Likely to Die (1997), for example, the subject under scrutiny is the daily workings of a hospital following the murder of a Manhattan neurosurgeon. Cold Hit (1999) investigates the sleazy world of unscrupulous art dealers while highlighting a Fairstein contribution to legal procedures instituted in real life in the same year: a “cold hit” unit in which prosecutors pursue suspects identified from more than sixteen thousand rape kits sitting in storage. One of the stronger entries in the series, The Deadhouse (2001), deals with a murder linked to a genuine New York landmark, Roosevelt Island, site of a nineteenth-century smallpox sanitarium, insane asylum, and prison. The Bone Vault (2003) connects a crime with New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Natural History. The title of The Kills (2004) serves double duty: It describes both a series of sex-related murders and the local name for the venue of the investigation, the numerous creeks and canals that honeycomb lower Manhattan.

Fairstein’s main characters mature, though they do not normally age. Both Alex Cooper and Mike Chapman acquire and lose romantic interests, but such interludes do not deflect them from their purpose: the arrest and conviction of perpetrators of sex crimes. To give recurring characters dimension, Fairstein spends considerable time describing what they wear, eat, drink, and other habits that become familiar to the reader.

Character, plot, and setting are Fairstein's strengths, but literary style is her weakness. Her documentary-like narratives are often slowed by the minutiae of police and legal procedures with which television-weaned readers may already expect to be familiar. Fairstein sometimes stops a story cold to lecture, to over-describe a scene, and to give unnecessary detail, and the result is sometimes a plodding tale, too long by half. Favorite terminology—like “buccal swabs”—is often repeated. Infrequent literary devices like similes and metaphors are labored and awkward. Dialogue is a continual problem: For all of Fairstein’s experience and authoritative tone when dealing with legal issues and the day-to-day workings of a busy prosecutor’s office, she does not have a keen ear for how people converse, and exchanges on occasion sound stilted.

Despite perceived flaws in her literary skills, Fairstein has sufficient verve in those facets of writing. She performs well to have acquired a faithful audience of enviable size willing to suspend disbelief long enough to devour her latest Alex Cooper release. Fairstein’s efforts may not produce great literature, but for millions of readers, she turns out to be a satisfying genre product.

The Deadhouse

One of the most interesting entries of the Alex Cooper series, The Deadhouse deals with the murder of King’s College professor Lola Dakota, who, it turns out, had been conducting an archaeological dig at notorious Roosevelt Island, the site of a century-old sanatorium where smallpox victims were sent to die. Filled with fascinating details of a forgotten aspect of New York’s past and geography and authoritative in tone when concerning day-to-day prosecutorial business, the plot drags a bit because of a subplot involving the heroine in a love affair, and the resolution is reached somewhat abruptly, leaving several plot threads hanging.

Death Dance

Based on the 1980 real-life disappearance at the Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center of a young violinist who vanished between acts, was murdered during the performance of an opera, and whose body was found in an airshaft, Death Dance (2006) involves Alex Cooper, Mike Chapman, and Mercer Wallace in the investigation into the similar death of an aging ballerina. The story, reflecting Fairstein’s longtime interest in ballet, mixes rumor, gossip, legend, and fact while exploring New York’s colorful history in the performing arts. Although the background information, as always, is interesting, and the main characters are believable, the dialogue does not ring true, the pace is plodding, and the suspense—mostly confined to the latter quarter of the book—seems contrived.

Principal Series Characters:

• Alexandra “Alex” Cooper, a tall, single, blond woman in her mid-thirties, is an assistant district attorney in Manhattan in charge of the Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit. A dedicated, tireless champion for the victims of sexual assault and related violence, Alex often becomes entangled in cases in which her safety is placed in jeopardy.
• Mike Chapman is a tall, lean, dark-haired detective with the New York Police Department (NYPD) Homicide Squad. By turns jovial and hard-boiled, bachelor Mike—who was involved with a woman who died after falling into a crevasse—frequently works with Alex in pursuing cases in which victims of sexual violence have died. He and Alex have a friendly, platonic relationship filled with good-natured banter.
• Mercer Wallace is a lieutenant with the NYPD Special Victims Squad, a transfer from the Homicide Squad. A very tall, bulky African American in his early forties, Mercer is married and the father of a young daughter. He teams with Alex and Mike, with whom he is in constant contact during the investigation of sexual assault and murder cases.

Bibliography

Bush, Vanessa. Review of The Deadhouse, by Linda Fairstein. Booklist 97, no. 22 (Aug. 2001): 547.

Dubose, Martha Hailey, with Margaret Caldwell Thomas. Women of Mystery: The Lives and Works of Notable Women Crime Novelists. St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2000.

Fairstein, Linda. Sexual Violence: Our War Against Rape. New York: William Morrow, 1993.

Lehman-Haupt, Christopher. “Divergent Views of Rape as Violence and Sex.” Review of Sexual Violence, by Linda Fairstein. The New York Times, Sept. 19, 1993, p. C15.

Melas, Chloe, and Dennis Romero. "Former Manhattan Prosecutor Linda Fairstein Reaches a Settlement with Netflix in Defamation Case." NBC News, 5 June 2024, www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/netflix-settles-defamation-case-linda-fairstein-series-ava-duvernay-rcna155491. Accessed 20 July 2024.

Melton, Emily. Review of Likely to Die, by Linda Fairstein. Booklist 93, no. 17 (May 1, 1997): 1460.

"Publisher Drops Central Park Five Prosecutor Linda Fairstein." BBC, 2019, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48563756. Accessed 20 July 2024.

Publishers Weekly. Review of The Bone Vault, by Linda Fairstein. 249, no. 42 (Oct. 21, 2002): 53.

"‘When They See Us’ Creators Sued for Defamation by Former Prosecutor." CNN, 18 Mar. 2020, edition.cnn.com/2020/03/18/entertainment/linda-fairstein-suit/index.html. Accessed 20 July 2024.