Other livesBooks This article is more than 9 years oldObituaryJim Frederick obituary
This article is more than 9 years oldJim Frederick, who has died suddenly aged 42, wrote a perceptive and influential book about the Iraq war. In Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent Into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death (2010), he made something incomprehensible understandable: the brutal rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and slaughter of her family by US servicemen who were themselves little more than boys. It came to feature on army reading lists in Britain, Canada and the US, and brought him invitations to lecture on leadership at the West Point military and Annapolis naval academies.
Jim cared about people enough to see the world through their eyes, however difficult that view proved. This ability enhanced his reporting and editing, and made him an extraordinary friend and colleague to many, and a mentor to ranks of aspiring young journalists.
He was born in the Chicago suburb of Lake Forest to Larry, a business executive, and Eileen (nee Durkin), now a clinical research nurse, and grew up in nearby Libertyville. After an English literature degree at Columbia University, New York, he gained an MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York University. He started at Time Inc on Money magazine and then transferred to Time magazine. During a stint as Time's Japan bureau chief, he co-wrote Charles Jenkins's memoir about deserting the US army for life in North Korea, The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea (2008).
Jim arrived in London as a senior editor, then moved to New York to revitalise Time's web operations before promotion to international editor. American through and through but global in outlook, he left Time in 2013 to travel the world, write, think and plan his next move.
This was to be a consultancy, Hybrid Vigor Media, bringing storytelling skills to business, which he had recently launched in San Francisco with his wife, Charlotte Greensit, from a Yorkshire farming family. They met when we all worked together in Time's London office. When I heard that Jim – who was ridiculously tall and handsome – would be coming to London, I remarked to Charlotte that his arrival would set hearts aflutter. I didn't know how prophetic this was. They married in 2011.
At the time of Jim's death, the couple were working on a screenplay: a romantic comedy in which a tall, handsome American meets the daughter of a Yorkshire farming family. The plot diverged from reality in characterising the male lead as cynical, something Jim never was.
He is survived by Charlotte, Larry, Eileen, two sisters, Laura and Sharon, and a brother, Ted.
Explore more on these topicsShareReuse this contentncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoKyaqpSerq96wqikaJqfpLi0e5FpaG1nkaq0cH6VaKGipV2bv6awxKugnKNdpK%2BqwNSaqbI%3D