On Michael Jackson

by Margo Jefferson

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307277658
• ISBN13: 9780307277657
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.39 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

most objective analysis on MJ

gaves a high level analysis in a very objective way on Michales so-called bizzar personality/behavior. It is not fact-focused, and actually the only book helps me understanding Michael instead of judging him. I enjoyed a lot reading the book and appreciate Margo's unique and sensetional point of view.

Margo Jerferson "On MJ"

This book was a good surprise for me. Very well and elegantly written, like a poem, insightful, psycologically wise, compelling like Michael dancing: elegant and sensual... Analitic and sensitive, made me feel compassion in a good way, loving him , heartfelt for his unacceptable passing. I'm still mourning...In a sea of "books about MJ", this is really provocative,a pleasure to read... Thank you, Margo for so brilliantly taking us though his life, like The Philladelphia Inquirer wrote:"calls for rumination, not scorn. Her jazzy style makes this book a literary entertainment of its own".

This Is The Book Right Now

I really really like this book. In the wake of Michael Jackson's premature death, this is the book to read. I have been reading it, thinking about it, studying its wonderfully animated analysis, comparing it to the information we are receiving and the tributes that are circulating through various media and it is so helpful, pure of spirit and just plain smart about the cultural issues that have shaped the performance and the reception of Jackson's fabulous and fascinating career. And it is so succinct--not a single syllable in excess--that I was dreading finishing it, savoring it, reading as slowly as I could, knowing that there was nothing else sensible to read on the topic. So I lost the book somewhere in the house to slow myself down, which gives me the pleasure of ordering the brand new paperback as soon as I possibly can. What great timing for me and for Margo Jefferson, a writer and an intellectual that I have admired for years and years and years.

Unique and personally engaging

Margo Jefferson has written a wonderfully original extended essay about Michael Jackson. She seems to be right at the reader's side as she vividly describes Jackson's talent and reflects on the cultural context of his media-blitzed career. Her thoughts are self-searching, animated, ardent and independent. Ms. Jefferson links Jackson's creativity to the history of performance traditions (and pathologies) in American entertainment--in a voice that is always unique and personally engaging--in the manner of a shared exploration.

Readers, please!

I must take issue with those reviewers who make a point of Margo Jefferson's factual errors, as if her book was meant to be definitively biographic. The title--"On Michael Jackson"--reveals her approach from the git. Hers is an extended--and exquisitely attuned--essay; a volume of musings on a deeply paradoxical subject that dips profoundly into cultural issues, and continually delivers treasure. The misguided will demand a summation, a tying-up; but this is a book of and about perception. Don't miss it if you enjoy the play of an extraordinary mind on an extraordinary subject.