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Life, Death, and Art in Michael Stewart's New York
by Elon Green
The first comprehensive book about Michael Stewart, the young Black artist and model who was the victim of a fatal assault by police in 1983, from Elon Green, the Edgar Award-winning author of Last Call.
At twenty-five years old, Michael Stewart was a young Black aspiring artist, deejay, and model, looking to make a name for himself in the vibrant downtown art scene of the early 1980's New York City. On September 15, 1983, he was brutally beaten by New York City Transit Authority police for allegedly tagging a 14th Street subway station wall.
Witnesses reported officers beating him with billy clubs and choking him with a nightstick. Stewart arrived at Bellevue Hospital hog-tied with no heartbeat and died after thirteen days in a coma. This was, at that point, the most widely noticed act of police brutality in the city's history. The Man Nobody Killed recounts the cultural impact of Michael Stewart's life and death.
The Stewart case quickly catalyzed movements across multiple communities. It became a rallying cry, taken up by artists and singers including Madonna, Keith Haring, Spike Lee, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, tabloid legends such as Jimmy Breslin and Murray Kempton, and the pioneering local news reporter, Gabe Pressman. The Stewart family and the downtown arts community of 1980s New York demanded justice for Michael, leading to multiple investigations into the circumstances of his wrongful death.
Elon Green, the Edgar Award–winning author of Last Call, presents the first comprehensive narrative account of Michael Stewart's life and killing, the subsequent court proceedings, and the artistic aftermath. In the vein of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace and His Name is George Floyd, Green brings us the story of a promising life cut short and a vivid snapshot of the world surrounding this loss. A tragedy set in stark contrast against the hope, activism, and creativity of the 1980's New York City art scene, The Man Nobody Killed serves as a poignant reminder of recurring horrors in American history and explores how, and for whom, the justice system fails.
"This smart, no-stone-unturned investigation into the horrific encounter between police and a young man of color doubles as a perceptive portrait of 1980s New York City, where, then as now, cynicism and corruption so often ran roughshod over the relatively powerless." ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"This sterling true crime account from Edgar winner Green (Last Call) plunges readers into the gritty landscape of 1980s New York City. ...Balancing propulsive pacing, careful research, and shrewd cultural analysis, Green convincingly highlights the failures of justice that led to Green's death... It's a harrowing look at a forgotten tragedy." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The murder of Michael Stewart remains, after more than forty years, an unstanched wound in the city's side. The incompetence, obfuscation, prevarication, corruption, and racism that prevented a resolution is documented in exacting detail by Elon Green, whose gift for pacing gives The Man Nobody Killed the feeling of a thriller. I've been following the story since 1983, and there is plenty here I didn't know." ―Lucy Sante, award-winning author of Low Life and I Heard Her Call My Name
"Elon Green's The Man Nobody Killed is a must read and just as riveting as his debut, Last Call. Prescient doesn't begin to cover the scope and many layers of New York society as police corruption, racial discrimination, music, and club culture all come under intense focus because of the untimely and unjust murder of Michael Stewart, someone who could have been as great and renowned like his contemporary, Basquiat." ―Morgan Jerkins, New York Times bestselling author of This Will Be My Undoing
This information about The Man Nobody Killed was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Elon Green has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker, and appears in Unspeakable Acts, Sarah Weinman's anthology of true crime. Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York was his first book and won the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime. Green was an executive producer on the HBO series adapted from Last Call.
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