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How Fiction Reflects the Reality of Crime

A broadcast of a panel held at New York University in April called "Cops and Writers: Crime and Punishment in Literature and Real Life." The panel, sponsored by the PEN American Center and The New York Review of Books, features police officials and writers, including crime writer Walter Mosley and author Joyce Carol Oates. The panel focuses on the fine line between crime fiction and crime reality. The writers talk about the fact that crime novelists generally draw on real criminals and real crimes to create their characters and plot. While these crime novels often seem implausible to readers, they say, what happens in the real world of crime is often even more unbelievable.

42:52

Other segments from the episode on August 9, 1994

Fresh Air with Terry Gross, August 9, 1994: Interview with Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, Linda Wolfe, Richard Condon, Mike Sheehan, Edwin Torres, and Evan Hunter; Review of Julia Blackburn's book…

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