Helen Garner on Malcolm:
She maintains a perfectly judged distance between her eye and its target. She does not suck up to the people she interviews. She gives her subjects rope. She allows herself to be charmed, at least until the subject reveals vacuity or phoniness, and then she snaps shut in a burst of impatience, and veers away. Although at times she draws back in distaste, or contempt, or even pity, she is not someone who deplores the way of the world or sets out, in her writing, to change it. She merely pays it the respect of her matchless eye. In her work there is a complete absence of hot air. There are no boring bits. Reading her is an austerely enchanting kind of fun. Everything she finds interesting she makes even more interesting by the quality of what she brings to it.
David A. Graham on Malcolm:
There are two kinds of magicians: Those who purport to be doing something truly supernatural, drawing on the paranormal, and those who are honest with their audiences about fooling them.
Janet Malcolm, who died last week at 86, was of the second type. Her journalism was filled with instances in which she alerted readers that she would be playing with their minds; she then did so effortlessly. Knowing you were being messed with was no protection.