I’ve been curious about John J. Lennon for years.
There are a few like him. He’s been in prison for a quarter-century after being convicted of killing a man in Brooklyn. But while behind bars, he began reckoning with his crime through journalism, thanks to an in-prison writing workshop, and eventually wrote an essay about gun control following the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. He workshopped the piece for months in his writing class. He read it out loud to himself inside his prison cell. Then, on a whim, he sent it to one of the most prestigious magazines in the country, The Atlantic. It accepted his piece.
Since then, John has made a national name for himself as an intelligent, clear-eyed writer about the country’s criminal justice system and what it’s really like to live locked up in America. So when he announced his first book, The Tragedy of True Crime: Four Guilty Men and the Stories That Define Us, was coming out, I knew we should try to get him on More To The Story.
From a phone inside Sing Sing Correctional Facility, John joins host Al Letson to talk about the crime that put him behind bars decades ago, as well as America’s endless obsession with true crime and stories just like his. John argues that tragedy is too often exploited and turned into entertainment for podcasts, streaming shows, and dramatic cable news reenactments. And in the process, we sacrifice our shared humanity for sensationalism. I hope you listen.
—Josh Sanburn
