Asia McClain, one of the “stars” of the podcast Serial, will surprise everybody (er, nobody) by writing a memoir about her experience as Adnan Syed’s sole alibi witness. In the first season of the hit show, McClain claimed she saw Syed in the library at the time of Hae Min Lee’s murder. But Syed’s defense lawyer, Christina Gutierrez, never asked McClain to testify, despite a series of letters she sent the Syed family offering to help. After the Serial investigation, McClain got a chance to address the court during Syed’s hearing for post-conviction relief in February. Now, with Confessions of a Serial Alibi, slated for publication in June, she will spill her secrets for the world at large.
While McClain may mean well, the breathless promotional language misting her book makes her look less than noble. Confessions promises to “set the record straight and the truth free” as “finally,” the author becomes “the key alibi witness that she was always meant to be.” Good for her, but this splashily marketed memoir (which name-checks the podcast that made McClain famous) reads more like a shameless publicity cash-grab than a sincere attempt to reckon with the past. Even Serial, with its sober, respectful tone, attracted criticism for sensationalizing a teen’s murder and another teen’s imprisonment. If that’s not McClain’s intention, maybe she should sue her publicity team for malpractice.
