UPDATED: January 21, 2022

Ronan Farrow’s Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators is a canonical (and controversial) text in the #MeToo movement, a member of its literary Pentateuch. The heart of the book is based on Mr. Farrow’s exposure in 2017 of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein as a serial predator and harasser of women.

Like the movement at its best, the book has the virtues of not only justice but also fortitude. Unfortunately, the book also has a vice that weighs down many non-fiction books, and it’s not the lack of corroboration or even the failure to prove a “conspiracy,” both of which attracted attention two years ago. It’s intemperate or self-indulgent.

I acknowledge feeling jealous toward Mr. Farrow. All of 29 years old when he broke his stories on Mr. Weinstein for The New Yorker, he was working on another book at the same time; that was The War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence.

To be sure, as the son of actress Mia Farrow and and Woody Allen, he grew up with wealth and connections, and as a college graduate while still a teenager, he was blessed with God-given intelligence.

Yet Mr. Farrow’s privilege was a mixed blessing at best. His family members accused Mr. Allen of molesting his sister when she was seven years old.

And few can doubt Mr. Farrow’s journalistic fortitude or grit. His commitment to exposing Harvey Weinstein was complete and total. He even missed his sister Quincy’s wedding. That’s a small example.

When NBC executives said no way to #MeToo

 A bigger example comes 75 pages into the book.

Early in March 2017, Farrow and his producer at NBC News sat in the office of Richard Greenberg, the interim head of the network’s investigative unit. They apprised him of the progress of the story: contacts with five women who alleged that Mr. Weinstein raped or sexually harassed them, a surreptitious audio tape of him admitting to an actress he has grown accustomed to women fending off his advances, and Mr. Weinstein’s signature on a million-dollar non-disclosure agreement.

At an earlier meeting, Mr. Greenberg’s phone buzzed. It was none other than Mr. Weinstein calling. Now, Mr. Greenberg delivers news to Mr. Farrow and his producer. The story has been put on hold.   

“It’s not in the news. I don’t’ think there’s any rush here,” Mr. Greenberg tells them. “I think where we stand now is, we give it a rest.”

Give it a rest? Five women admit a Hollywood mogul assaulted or harassed them, and NBC News insists the story is run-of-the-mill fare?

NBC killed Mr. Farrow’s story. Plus, the network failed to renew his contract, which expired that fall. No matter, Mr. Farrow took his story to The New Yorker, which published his work happily. 

You are paranoid, and someone is out to get you

On top of that, Mr. Farrow was spied upon. Mr. Weinstein hired Black Cube, whose members were drawn from the Israeli military and intelligence, to kill any expose. This must have been deeply unnerving. Strange men followed his movements at all hours. Yet Mr. Farrow pressed on.

It goes without saying Mr. Farrow’s work was an act of justice to Mr. Weinstein’s victims. The women had been degraded and dehumanized, and Mr. Farrow works to hold Mr. Weinstein accountable for his sins and crimes.

In its intrepid pursuit of justice, Catch and Kill is inspiring. It gives you sustenance for the battles to come or even choosing to confront a battle at all. Who doesn’t need inspiration and sustenance?!

How A detective story and spy thriller bores

 That said, Catch and Kill has problems.

As Ben Smith of The New York Times wrote two years ago, Mr. Farrow fails to prove his sweeping claim of a conspiracy between NBC, the parent company of the National Enquirer, and Mr. Weinstein to kill his expose. As Ken Auletta, a source for Mr. Farrow, “Are all the T’s crossed and the I’s dotted? No.”

To ordinary readers, the bigger problem with Catch and Kill is one that afflicted the non-fiction books Honor Thy Father and The French Connection. It can be a slog. Details are heaped upon more details, which are heaped upon yet more details.

Four months and 40-plus pages later, Mr. Farrow continues to battle with NBC brass about running his expose on Mr. Weinstein. In the passage below, he recounts yet another meeting with Noah Oppenheim, an executive of NBC’s Today show:

He was sitting on a beige couch. On a wall next to him, an array of screens flickered, news tickers racing by. Nearby, a framed diptych showed a game of Quidditch, rendered in brown and green Magic Marker and signed by Oppenheim’s eight-year-old son. ‘It’s a big story,’ I said. “It’s a prominent guy, admitting to serious misconduct, on tape.’ ‘Well, first of all,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if it that’s, you know, a crime. ‘ ‘It’s a misdemeanor,’ I said. “It’s months in jail, potentially. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said. ‘But we’ve gotta decide if it’s newsworthy.’ I stared at him.

The goes on for another half page, and not until 70 pages later does the reader learn NBC has killed his expose once and for all.

That’s evidence of intemperance: a failure to keep proper balance.

The book’s details serve the interests of trivia buffs, obsessives, and family members. It doesn’t serve the interests of general readers, though.

Catch and Kill would have benefited from a proper use of the “telling detail.” As is, the book should have been cut in half. It’s more of a long magazine article than a book.

What does everybody else think?

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