Reviews

I'm really rather embarrassed to have read this, but the recent film (all thirteen hours of it!) sufficiently intrigued me. Graysmith, as several people cautioned me, is not a very good writer; he has an odd tendency to sensationalize not especially sensational moments, and then describe parts that are naturally fantastic or terrifying in a strangely flat tone. In a way it served as a compliment to David Fincher, who included some legitimately nail-biting scenes in his 26-hour-long adaptation. It's intriguing, however, to see how Graysmith's seriously consuming interest in Zodiac manifests in this book; he draws some connections that seem like pretty lengthy reaches to me, and I'm not utterly convinced of the veracity of all his reporting. In a way this becomes a story not so much about a serial killer, but about a man obsessed with one. It was in the scenes with that element as their focus that Fincher's film became the most cohesive (and stopped making you feel every second of its 39-hour-length), and interestingly, the places in Graysmith's narrative where that subtext shines through are where it's the most compelling as well. In the end, neither is the best book or movie that could be made on the subject, but they're both very interesting in spots.