From the Archive: “The Mystery of JonBenét Ramsey” | Joyce Carol Oates, Alissa Bennett

In the June 24, 1999, issue of The New York Review of Books, Joyce Carol Oates wrote about the murder of JonBenét Ramsey and dissected America’s fascination with “the category of nonfiction known as ‘true crime.’”

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In this episode of Private Life, “The Mystery of JonBenét Ramsey” is read by writer Alissa Bennett. This reading accompanies the Private Life episode featuring Oates discussing her novels, essays, and the improbability of her life. You can also read “The Mystery of JonBenét Ramsey” on our website here.

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Private Life is a podcast from The New York Review, hosted by contributor Jarrett Earnest. Each episode offers intimate, in-depth conversations with distinguished voices from across the literary landscape—about their lives, their work, and the ideas that shape both. Along the way, they revisit pieces from the Review’s robust sixty-year archive (some episodes of the podcast will feature newly recorded readings of these classic essays) to situate arguments within contemporary culture. The show also includes discussions of titles from our book publishing arm, New York Review Books.

Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates is a Visiting Distinguished Professor in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers–New Brunswick. She is the author, most recently, of the novel Fox. (July 2025)

Alissa Bennett

Alissa Bennett’s work has appeared in The Paris Review, Vogue, The New York Times, and Artforum. From 2016 to 2019 she also wrote the zine Dead Is Better, about celebrity deaths, and from 2019 to 2022 she cohosted the podcast The C-Word with Lena Dunham.