Discover Well-Read Black Girl Books and the projects reshaping publishing →

Book Summary and Reviews of Drawn Testimony by Jane Rosenberg

Drawn Testimony by Jane Rosenberg

Drawn Testimony

My Four Decades as a Courtroom Sketch Artist

by Jane Rosenberg

  • Critics' Consensus (17):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • Published:
  • Aug 2024, 256 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

From America's top courtroom sketch artist, a penetrating, compulsively readable memoir about her dramatic four-decade career.

For over forty years, Jane Rosenberg has been at the heart of the news cycle, covering almost every major trial that has passed through the New York justice system as a courtroom sketch artist, including the most recent Donald Trump hush money trial.

In Drawn Testimony, Rosenberg brings us into the dramatic high-stakes world of her craft, where art, psychology and courtroom drama collide. Over the course of her legendary career, Jane has had a front-row seat to some of the most iconic and notorious moments in our nation's recent history, including cases pertaining to:

  • Mick Jagger
  • Martha Stewart
  • Tom Brady's "Deflategate" scandal
  • John Lennon's murder trial
  • Ghislaine Maxwell
  • John Gotti
  • Harvey Weinstein
  • The Boston Marathon bomber
  • Donald Trump

Readers will learn how she has honed her unique powers of perception and also what her portraits reveal, not only about her subjects, but about the human condition in general.

Fearless, fascinating and gorgeously written, Drawn Testimony captures the unique career of an artist whose body of work depicts history as it's happening.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Rosenberg's fascinating debut offers a front row seat to some of the most high-profile criminal cases of the last four decades…The results thrill without teetering into salaciousness. Readers will be hard-pressed to put this down." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"As vibrant and compelling a writer as she is an artist... Perceptive, compassionate, and endlessly fascinated by how the human condition is revealed in the courtroom, Rosenberg tells riveting and resonant tales in image and word." —Booklist (starred review)

"Rosenberg's fascinating debut offers a front row seat to some of the most high-profile criminal cases of the last four decades." —Library Journal (starred review)

"A mesmerizing look at this rarest of professions… As talented as Rosenberg is at drawing, she is an equally gifted writer… An utterly absorbing read."  —Bookpage (starred review)

"Rosenberg delivers stories for every true-crime buff—and aspiring courtroom artist… A revealing look at an often-overlooked aspect of the legal system." —Kirkus Reviews

"Drawn Testimony is riveting. Through the singular craft that is her life's calling, Rosenberg gives us a front row seat to the most important courtroom trials of our generation." —Hope Jahren, New York Times bestselling author of Lab Girl

"An immersive and riveting reading experience. Jane Rosenberg captures moment and mood in her sketches, turning pastel impressions into whole narratives—and, along the way, slyly relating a unique forty-year cultural history of New York City." —Judy Melinek & T.J. Mitchell, New York Times bestselling authors of Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner

"Reading Drawn Testimony is like peering over Jane Rosenberg's shoulder as she deftly captures telling moments from trial after trial. Against the odds, her prose keeps pace with her pastels." —Patrick Bringley, author of All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me

This information about Drawn Testimony 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.

Reader Reviews

Click here and be the first to review this book!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Jane Rosenberg

Jane Rosenberg received a degree in fine art from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She became a courtroom artist for major television stations and newspapers covering trials such as John Gotti, Susan Smith, Woody Allen, the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing Trial, Michael Skakel, Martha Stewart, WorldCom, and most recently, Donald Trump's arraignment. Her work is seen in collections throughout the US and abroad.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Drawn Testimony, try these:

  • All Fours jacket

    All Fours

    by Miranda July

    Published 2025

    About this book

    The New York Times bestselling author returns with an irreverently sexy, tender, hilarious and surprising novel about a woman upending her life

  • I Just Keep Talking jacket

    I Just Keep Talking

    by Nell Irvin. Painter

    Published 2024

    About this book

    From the New York Times bestselling author of The History of White People and Old in Art School, a finalist for the NBCC Award, comes a comprehensive new collection of essays spanning art, politics, and the legacy of racism that shapes American history as we know it.

  • Biography of X jacket

    Biography of X

    by Catherine Lacey

    Published 2024

    About this book

    From one of our fiercest stylists, a roaring epic chronicling the life, times, and secrets of a notorious artist.

We have 10 read-alikes for Drawn Testimony, but non-members are limited to three results. Join free to see the complete list of recommendations.
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes

More Biography/Memoir

Browse all Biography/Memoir books

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
When No One Else Will
by Amanda Skenandore
1940s Chicago nurse risks everything at an illegal women’s clinic during a high-profile trial of courage and sisterhood.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket
    The Jellyfish Problem
    by Tessa Yang
    A marine biologist rescues a Maine island menaced by a giant glowing jellyfish in this inventive debut.
  • Book Jacket
    Look What You Made Me Do
    by John Lanchester
    A propulsive tale of intergenerational tension and revenge from the Booker Prize nominee.
  • Book Jacket
    Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young
    by Zayd Ayers Dohrn
    Son of Weather Underground radicals recounts life on the run and decades of revolutionary struggle.
Who Said...

I like a thin book because it will steady a table...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Book
Trivia
  • Book Trivia

    Can you name the title?

    Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

Q S, S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.