Because Joe McGinniss has experimented with different kinds of writing, criticism of his work has ranged across very different battlefields. From his first book, The Selling of the President 1968 (1969), a critically praised and best-selling analysis of the 1968 presidential campaign, to his most recent work, The Last Brother: The Rise and Fall of Teddy Kennedy (1993), a "rumination" on the life and mythology of Sen. Edward Kennedy, McGinniss has been a lightning rod for concerns over nonfiction writers' more controversial methods. For example, Fatal Vision (1983) attracted attention when its subject, an army doctor convicted of murdering his wife and daughters, sued McGinniss for breach of contract. McGinniss had befriended Jeffrey MacDonald and had appeared to believe his protestations of innocence while McGinniss was researching the case. Fatal Vision, however, affirmed the court verdict of guilt and called MacDonald a "pathological narcissist." Some critics supported MacDonald's claim that McGinniss had betrayed...