A Wilderness of Error

The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald

By: Errol Morris

Narrated by: John Pruden

Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

Early on the morning of February 17, 1970, in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a Green Beret doctor named Jeffrey MacDonald called the police for help. When the officers arrived at his home they found the bloody and battered bodies of MacDonald's pregnant wife and two young daughters. The word "pig" was written in blood on the headboard in the master bedroom. As MacDonald was being loaded into the ambulance, he accused a band of drug-crazed hippies of the crime.

So began one of the most notorious and mysterious murder cases of the 20th century. Jeffrey MacDonald was finally convicted in 1979 and remains in prison today. Since then a number of best-selling books - including Joe McGinniss's Fatal Vision and Janet Malcolm's The Journalist and the Murderer, along with a blockbuster television miniseries - have attempted to solve the MacDonald case and explain what it all means.

In A Wilderness of Error, Errol Morris, who has been investigating the case for nearly two decades, reveals that almost everything we know about that case is ultimately flawed, and an innocent man may be behind bars. In a masterful reinvention of the true-crime thriller, Morris looks behind the haze of myth that still surrounds these murders. Drawing on court transcripts, lab reports, and original interviews, Morris brings a complete 40-year history back to life and demonstrates how our often desperate attempts to understand and explain an ambiguous reality can overwhelm the facts.

A Wilderness of Error allows the listener to explore the case as a detective might, by confronting the evidence as if for the first time. Along the way Morris poses bracing questions about the nature of proof, criminal justice, and the media, and argues that MacDonald has been condemned not only to prison, but also to the stories that have been created around him. In this profoundly original meditation on truth and justice, Errol Morris reopens a famous closed case and reveals that, 40 years after the murder of MacDonald's family, we still have no proof of his guilt.

©2012 Errol Morris (P)2012 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Bound to be in demand." ( Library Journal)

Can't get my 2 hour back.

What disappointed you about A Wilderness of Error?

The author writing is very fragmented. To me it does not feel like a book. There is no build up to the setting or character development. It goes from 3rd person account to 1st person account. One sentence it is author telling a story, another sentence, he is telling it from the main character point of view. I tried so hard to listen, but after 2 hours, I just gave up. Author have some kind of fascination with the Poet Edgar Allan Poe. he keeps quoting it like every 5 minutes. I gave story 3 star, even though, I did not finish it. My head was spinning. One of his quotes was like what if you have got everything wrong. what if the accused did not kill anyone, what if it not up but it is down. it is not in, but it is out. Bottom line, there is no flow in the story.

Would you ever listen to anything by Errol Morris again?

Never.

What three words best describe John Pruden’s performance?

I can listen to him tell story by another author.

Meandering propaganda

Overly long, disjointed and self indulgent, the author forgoes analysis for a whiny argument that reads more like an Oliver Stone screenplay than a serious legal breakdown.

Terrible

Terrible naration. Purely one sided storyline. Even the earlier book, Fatal Vision, provided exculpatory theories, but not this book. Not worth downloading

I expected better from Erroll Morris

The Thin Blue Line is an amazing film and the people who told Morris that they didn't want to make this trashfire into a movie may have been trying to save his reputation.

Morris leaves out important evidence against MacDonald, but even worse he tries to assassinate the character of Collette MacDonald's parents for not being willing to let her murder and the murder of her children go.

It's not weird to want to see someone punished for the death of your child and grandchildren, Errol.

But when Morris attacks the looks of Collette's mother while basically calling her crazy?
That's so far over the line. It's an appalling thing to have done.