Jane Mayer

Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, wants America to remember that the Bill of Rights, that document that gets name-checked by so many from white supremacists to gay rights activists, doesn’t just apply to the people born in this country.

“ALL people,” she wrote me in an email, “(not just Americans) are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.”

So when she heard John Yoo, a deputy chief in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and co-author of the now notorious “torture” memo, say at a seminar that some people are so evil that torture is warranted, in her words, “It took my breath away,” she said.

The notion that one man, any man, including the President of the United States could make a decision to strip a human being of the rights to which we are all so protective of, was to her such an incredible abuse of power that she couldn’t let the subject drop.

Her ongoing interest in the subject of whether or not America can defeat terrorists without, as she puts it, “sinking to their level,” informs much of her work as a staff writer for The New Yorker.

“This is going to be a continuing challenge to the civilized world,” she says, “and I’m interested in seeing how we meet it.”

Because of the sensitivity of the topic, and the figures involved, it would be understandable if she were worried for the safety of herself and her family, but her main concern is for her sources, who could be accused of giving out national secrets—a crime.

“It’s a good way for the government to keep the public from learning anything,” she said.

Mayer is a prolific writer, publishing in both the print and online forms of The New Yorker, and after starting early in life, shows no sign of slowing down.  She doesn’t see retirement in her future anytime soon, but surprisingly, in a departure from her current and past work, she’d like to write young adult fiction, inspired perhaps by her teenage daughter.

Her daughter, while described by her mother as “a wonderful, natural writer,” sees journalism as a dying profession; certainly Mayer hopes that this will not come to pass for a long time. In the meantime, readers can continue to enjoy Mayer’s clear and passionate prose on whatever subject she has set her sights on.

Jane Mayer will be a featured guest at the Old Dominion University 32nd Annual Literary Festival:  Writers in Peace and War, Tuesday, October 6, 7:30 PM at the Chandler Recital Hall.  For more information contact the ODU English Department’s Creative Writing office at 757-683-3929, or click here for the full schedule.