The Bayou Strangler

In 2008, Ronald Joseph Dominque was sentenced to eight consecutive life sentences for the death of eight murders. However, police believed the total number of deaths by his hand might be as high as twenty-three. Dominique later confessed to twenty-three murders across Southeast Louisiana.

Like other serial killers, there wasn’t anything peculiar about the Bayou Strangler. Dominique was an overweight, unhealthy sexual predator who selected gay men he solicited for sex or stranded alongside the road to rape and kill. People who remembered his described his as just a quiet, ordinary guy. He was an active member of the local Lions Club and spent Sundays calling out Bingo numbers to the elderly. His private life consisted of cross dressing and bad impressions of Patti la Belle in the New Orleans gay scene.

Strangulation was his preferred method of killing. When he was done he’d discard the bodies in the local cane fields or bayous of the parishes bordering New Orleans. His victims ranged in age from sixteen to forty-six. He told police he killed his victims to prevent them from reporting him after the rapes.

Like the Gacy’s, Bundy’s, and Dahmer’s of the world he selected his victims from the overlooked, forgotten and discarded of society. His victims were often male prostitutes or homeless men. Some of his victims were heterosexual men lured into his trap with a promise of having sex with an imaginary wife or drugs.  He often took his victims to a trailer he lived in and somehow convinced them to allow him to tie them up. Once subdued, Dominique would rape and strangle his victims before discarding their bodies.

His reign of terror lasted ten years before he was apprehended based on a tip from a homeless man who told the police he’d been lured to a trailer to have sex with a man’s wife. The witness says he got suspicious and fled when the man tried to tie him up.

THE KILLING JOKE by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland

One bad day. The story theme is that what separates the sane from the insane is an incident—a tipping point—that pushes the sane over the edge. The proposition assumes we are all teetering on insanity. The assumption in this story is that once we fall into insanity there is no going back.

Batman desperately wants to end the suicidal combat between himself and the Joker. The only end he sees in the continuing battle between the two is the death of either or both. Batman is driven to save the lives of his friend Commissioner Gordon and daughter Barbara after the Joker has severely wounded Barbara and abducted the Commissioner with the intent to drive him insane. The Joker’s point is to prove that even the sanest man(person) can be driven mad with the right motivation. In the end the Joker fails, sanity prevails, and humanity is resilient.

At one point, the Joker poses the question of Batman’s sanity and guesses at what drove him mad. But, is the Batman insane as the Joker implies?  Or was the catalyst in Batman’s life that moved him to be a crime fighter (vigilante) more a motivating event?  I’m not Batman expert, but what I remember of the storyline is that a young Bruce Wayne, after witnessing the death of his parents, was never in danger of living a life of crime or becoming a serial killer. He chose the path of protecting the prey from predators. The persona of Batman is a role whereas, the Joker, through some freak chemical accident, became a completely different person from his original identity. He barely remembers the life before becoming the Joker so it is unclear in this reading that the personal tragedy in his life was the tipping point to madness, but rather it was the chemical imbalance caused by his falling into the polluted river. By the way, the EPA should get on that.

If the story was attempting to drive the point home about the tenuous hold on sanity we possess I don’t know if it worked for me or even if I would have gotten that if I weren’t looking for it. None-the-less, to enjoy the artwork and the story I didn’t need to.

JOYRIDE by Jack Ketchum

What is wrong with Wayne?  Since the purpose of this class is to focus on psychos then we must place our attention on him and what sets him apart from the other characters we've discussed up to now. 

As I read his character, Wayne is a thrill seeking killer motivated by that purpose alone. We don't really know how he got that way and neither does he, except of course for the mommy issues, but that seems par for the course among crazies.  Killing is an itch he longs to scratch.  But it isn't just killing, it's killing humans.  When he witnesses a murder after nearly surrendering to the urge of killing his own girlfriend, Wayne thinks he's found kindred spirits who, at the very least, might share the rush of the kill along with him.  Wayne kidnaps them and thus begins the joyride.

I found the title interesting to me even if I didn't find the subject matter thought provoking. The idea of a joyride when compared to the pacing of the writing is an appropriate match. The story is fast paced from the beginning.  The initial setup is short with little time to dwell on how our two kidnapped ride alongs got to be in their situation. We know enough and we know it quickly then it's pedal to medal as we careening down the streets of crazyland with Wayne. 

Wayne was not obsessed with death.  His obsession was with killing.  The common theme, at least among the villains we've studied, is their killings were ways of gaining control.  Wayne was no different.  

This book reminded me of a very bad Steven Seagal movie call Out for Justice where a doped up thug goes on a rampage driving through the streets of a big city killing people he thought of as his enemies.  That's where the comparison ends.  This book is so much better.

SE7EN

Seven is the 1995 psychological thriller about a madman in a world gone mad.  Some might even boil it down to a simple Good vs Evil story.  Some might see it as a serial killer psycho movie.  Yet, it is so much more than that.  I see the movie as the story of one man with three points of view.  Who are the three?

John Doe is our mysterious villain who we only know by the results of his labor where he leaves death in the form of the seven deadly sins.  We don’t see him clearly until late into the movie when he decides to voluntarily reveal himself.  He steps out of the shadows and the torrential rain and into the light of day.  Still, he is ignored and has to yell to be noticed.  He cries out for recognition. 

Detective William Somerset is the grizzled police veteran who has seen too much.  He’s cool, aloof, and detached because the world in which he lives has worn his spirit down to a nub.  Each day he rolls a rock up a mountain only to return the next day and find the same rock waiting to be rolled up again. He’s at the end of his days and looks back and sees a waste land.

Detective David Mills is the enthusiastic, optimist full of emotions young detective.  He wears these emotions on his sleeve.  He’s wound tighter than a watch and is a modern day knight.  He seeks dragons to slay and John Doe is a big one. 

 Together these three characters make up one man.  Who?  My answer is John Doe.  Not the John Doe that kills.  I mean the John Doe as to why the killer is named John Doe.  Because he is a dark part of anyone who might, given the right stresses, be conjured up from a very dark place inside of any of us: John Doe. 

Our three main characters represent three reactions and points of view of the same world.  John Doe, the villain, sees a world gone wrong and wants to bring “righteousness” back by calling attention to Man’s depravity through his murders.  Somerset, to a lesser degree, feels the same about the world.  He sees the world’s depravity as a losing battle and sympathizes with Man’s apathy as he calls it.  He says it’s easier to give up than to fight.  Yet, he fights on to keep some level of balance in the world.  He fights the rising tide.

Detective Mills sees the world very differently.  He believes in the fight.  He believes the fight can be won.  What makes him different?  Hope.  Of the three he is the only one who has someone else in his life.  He loves his wife and his love gives him hope.  He believes in a better world.  He doesn’t want to just stop the rising tide he wants to push it back.  Even John Doe envies him for his spirit and his hope. 

John Doe and Somerset are loners.  Not like me who likes to be alone, but loners because they don’t like Man any longer.  Think of the story Somerset reads from John Doe’s diary of the time he was on the subway and a stranger strikes up a conversation.  What is John Doe’s reaction?  He pukes on the guy and laughs.  The very thought of other humans makes him sick.

John Doe and Somerset are the extremes of what happens when Hope is lost.  We slip from not caring about ourselves to not caring about others to doing insane acts to be heard.  I think that might be one point of the movie.  Or at least it could be.  Think about it.  What happened to Mills when his hope was taken away at the end of the movie?   

The Sculptor by Gregory Funaro (2010)

Alas, I really wanted to like this book, but it was not to be.  From the outset where Tommy the football star awakens to a dream sequence and the beginning of chapter one where we experience the same kind of opening with Dr. Hildebrandt until the very end with the faux cliff hanger I struggled mightily. For me the test of a book is the hook at the beginning and a single question at the end: what do I remember about the story?  To the first, I didn’t find the hook compelling and to the second I have to answer: not much.  Thank goodness I dog-eared pages.

However, I was impressed was the amazing amount of detail about Michelangelo and his art as well as some of the graphic description of murder and mutilation.  It must have taken hundreds of hours to research and then distill the historic information down for easy consumption.  The details gave the characters and plot credibility if not plausibility.  As for the graphic details of murder and mutilation I tend to be in the school of less is more, but that is matter of taste. 

This novel is all about Christian Bach aka the Sculptor aka the Michelangelo Killer.  Everything in the book is geared toward learning about him.  Our protagonists, Cathy Hildebrant and Sam Markham spend the entire book attempting to figure him out in order to track him down and stop him before he finishes his masterpiece.   A pretty typical plot for a psychological thriller. Except a major pillar of the thriller is a clock.  The bad guy has to be stopped before something happens. So I'm not certain this fits as a thriller. Question: what happens if Christian does or doesn’t accomplish his goal?  We never find out, but that isn’t the point. He’s the bad guy and must be caught. Fair enough because those are the rules, right?  But what’s at stake?  Will he continue to kill until he’s exhausted all of Michelangelo’s masterpieces?  Or will he feel satisfied at the completion of the Pieta’ and then retire to a life of leisure?  We never find out.  Or, I should say, I don’t recall. 

In fact, what we learn about Christian isn’t revealed in any detail until the last quarter of the book.  Bits of his life are flashed before our eyes: he’s a caretaker; a genius, rich, his mother died and so on, but nothing in depth about his past or his true motivation.  This worked for me because what he was up to was more interesting and important than the Why for a while.  In a plot where you have a FBI profiler and an Art Expert tracking down a psychopath we don’t need to know why he is doing what he is doing immediately.  That is what the protagonists are there to uncover.  And so it was in this case also. 

As psychopaths go Christian Bach has everything it takes to move to the head of the class: money, brains, super strength, sexual confusion, high motivation, incestuous mother and something to say.  Yep, the total package of screwed.  Everything except he’s a clump of Playdough smashed against the images of psychos from characters past.  A copy if there ever was one lacking a morsel of originality.  More about this at the end.

So what else do we learn about Christian?  The author chose to create him as a sexually confused homosexual who was molested by an alcoholic mother and believes his relationship with her is the same as Christ and the Virgin Mary.  So toss in some religious issues as well.  He is confused about his body and is, at one point, compared to a “naked Schwarzenegger” with a hairless torso and bald head.  The bald head still confuses me because I don’t know why this was an important feature unless Christian saw himself as a statue also.  Never-the-less, he gets sexual pleasure from watching his victims die or as he believes “awakens.”  I’m still trying to figure that one out.  A part of me expected him to go to his closet and find David Carradine’s naked body hanging from a belt inside.  It was the only thing missing.

Okay, what does this mean?  It means the author borrowed just about every characteristic of popular psycho thrillers of the last decade to create Christian.  And therein lay the problem I have with the book. It was one of the problems.  From the very first page, I felt like I had read the story before.  That’s how familiar it felt.  On the front cover there is a blurb by Gregg Olsen,

 “It reminded me of why I loved The Silence of the Lambs so much.”

 Well, Gregg, would you like to know why it reminded you of that book?  Might it be that Christian was a knockoff of Buffalo Bill?  Maybe it was the male version of Clarice Starling in the form of Sam Markham.  They channeled Lecter instead of bringing him in physically.  How about the self-flagellating Albino from The Davinci Code?  How about the plot of the Davinci Code while we’re at it?  The university professor and the cop seek clues to a secret in the art of a famous art master.  How about the fire scene from Red Dragon?  It was there too.  Toss in a few of James Patterson super smart villains for good measure.  Mix in the scene from the MUMMY where the priest tries to reanimate Anck-Su-Namun.  All of it intermingled in with gratuitous sexual content and violence that had no real purpose other than to titillate.  Not to mention equating homosexuality with insanity.  Geez! 

Big problem, Dr. Hildy somehow channeled the voice of Christian’s mother while she lay naked and strapped to the table.  What the hell?  Was she momentarily possessed?  Only one of the many times I slammed the book down and walked away.    

I have to ask, did we really need a love connection between the two protagonist?  I didn’t.  I thought it was silly.  They get married at the end.  Really?  Fah-la-la, happy ending.  Until Christian comes back in a later book.  No body was found, remember? 

Even as I finished reading the last lines of the happy ending and the implied threat of a copycat or possibly survival of Christian, I still had to wonder as to his motivation.  What was he trying to accomplish?  Was it to have Hildebrandt realize he saw her as his mother?  Then why was trying to kill her at the end?  Was it some message to the world?  If so, I go back to my earlier question about what was he expecting once he accomplished his goal?  Maybe one of you figured it out.  If you did, then maybe you can tell me why in the already stuffy and stiff dialogue it was necessary to constantly use the name of the character when they were talking to each other.  Very annoying. 

            “Hello, Sam.”

            “Hello, Cathy.”

            “Sam, do you think we’ll ever know each other well enough to stop announcing each other’s name.”

            “Well, Cathy, I understand this is a great way to memorize the names of strangers.”

I think the book was probably 100 pages too long.  Specifically, chapters 11 and 12 could have been edited out.  Those chapters deal with the parents of two victims.  The character of Bill Burrell didn’t really do anything to move the story along.  He was well written, but he was set up to be a road block and that never materialized.  

I wanted to like this book, but I was distracted by the familiarity with too many other novels or movies I knew.  I didn’t buy it and I didn’t feel the need to find out what happened next.  I felt as though I was reading a recipe to a dish I'd eaten many times before. 

           

Misery by Stephen King

Paul Sheldon, best-selling romance author of the Misery Chastain series, finds himself in hands of his number one fan, Annie Wilkes, after drunk driving through a snow storm on a mountain road.  He wakes in extreme pain and a bad taste in his mouth because Annie didn’t drop a Tic-Tac before administering mouth to mouth.  Two lessons here: never drive drunk and never tongue kiss a mountain woman.  You don’t know where that thing has been.

 

Annie, being the kind hearted soul that she is, cares for Paul in a bedroom at her secluded farmhouse.  (Hello!  Secluded farmhouse, you know the shit is about to drop!)  Annie calls him a guest, but Paul soon realizes he’s a hostage.  Annie used to be a nurse and, like all former nurses, she keeps a well-stocked pharmacy in her home.  You name it she’s got it.  Of course, this was pre-Meth epidemic days.  Paul is severely injured and soon finds himself hooked on Codeine.  It’s the good stuff and the kind of drug everyone keeps stashed at home.  Just say NO, Paul.

Slowly, Paul gets better and Annie gets worse.  Not only did Annie save Paul’s life she also saved the finished manuscript he’s been working on.  Not realizing it’s only a first draft, Annie the super critic is pissed at the violence and cursing in the draft and Paul pays for it.  Annie withholds his drugs and Paul starts hurting (Come on, baby, I’ll suck your …)bad.  In an epiphany, Paul realizes the bitch is crazy.  With fans like her who needs crit partners.  But wait, it gets worse.

Paul’s latest novel, Misery’s Child, hits the shelves at the local Wal Mart.  Annie reads it in one sitting and freaks.  Misery is killed off (Oh, Lordy!).  Why the hell did he do that?  Annie does what?  She goes batshit crazy.  Which if crazy had belts like in Karate would give her a double fudge chocolate black belt in crazy.  When batshit crazy people leave you alone for two days because their afraid of how batshit crazy they are it’s ass puckering time.  Paul is near death when she returns all lovey-dovey and with a plan of her own.  Paul is to resurrect the dead Misery in his new book which he is to begin tout de suite (that means right now in French).

   

Paul, knowing how easy it is to write a novel agrees—Not!  He tries to reason with Annie.  It doesn’t work.  Why?  You know why.  She’s batshit craaazy!  Paul gets to work and nearly breaks his finger on the old fashioned typewriter Annie gives him.  Don’t complain, Paul, if you know what’s good for you.  Dumbass! Didn’t I tell you not to complain! 

Paul sneaks out of his room while Annie is running errands to look for more drugs, right.  He’s jonesin bad.  He’s ready to squeal like a pig to the first person to say he has a purdy mouth.  (note: that’s an obscure reference to Deliverance and has nothing to do with Misery).  On one trip, Paul learns just how batshit crazy Annie is.  She’s more than coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs.  Annie was a very good serial killer.  She’s retired now, but the skills never go away.  Paul has another Oh, shit! moment.  But what can he do, right?  He’s got a monkey on his back, a crazy serial killer in the house, and he’s in a wheel chair in a house that isn’t wheel chair friendly.  It gets worse.

Annie knows Paul has been trippin.  Not only is she crazy, but she’s OCD.  As if he weren’t having enough trouble getting around, Annie cuts off his foot.  (This little piggy went to market.  This little piggy stayed home.  Fuck it, I take all of them and the house, too.  Slice!)  Paul is now Kunta Kinte from Roots.  Does Paul learn?  Hell no!  The dumb bastard complains about a missing letter on the typewriter.  I hope you weren’t planning on hitch-hiking, Paul, because Annie’s got your thumb.  She uses an electric knife she bought on the Home Shopping Channel. 

Finally, Finally!  A state trooper shows up looking for Paul.  Not a problem for Annie who has mad killer skills.  She stabs the cop with a wooden cross.  Maybe she thinks he’s a vampire, I don’t know.  Then she mulches him with the lawnmower.  Are you watching, Paul?  Then stop complaining.  Paul realizes if he is to escape it will be up to him.

Paul eventually finishes the new novel and Annie loves it.  She’s his number one fan, remember?  He talks Annie into a celebration.  She says cool.  “Let’s go dancing, Paul.  Wait, I cut off your your foot.  My bad.  Thumbs up!”  Things don’t go the way Annie thought they would at the end.  There’s a twist.  What is it?  I’m not telling.  The book is too good not to read.  You know what to do.  Read the damned book!  Don’t be lazy!

I read Misery when it was first published.  I was a lonely soldier pulling duty on a Turkish mountain overlooking the Black Sea.  It kept me sane.  I loved it then and still love it today.

       

Silence of the Lambs (The Movie)

Agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) is a wicked smart FBI trainee pulled from the FBI Academy by Senior Agent Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) to interview the notorious psychiatrist and part-time cannibal Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins).  Why?  Because there is equally gruesome, but less adept, serial killer called Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) on the loose who likes to skin plus size women in order to wear their skin and become a woman himself.  It seems old Buffalo Bill was turned down for a sex change operation and decided to do it himself on the cheap.  He spends his time wearing dresses and dancing in the mirror practicing the worst porn movie lines ever.  “Call me Meso.  Meso what?  Me so horny.  Love you long time.”

Agent Starling (I guess Will Graham was too busy)goes to interview Lecter at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane where she meets the head doctor Dr. Frederick Chilton (Anthony Heald) who doesn’t take her seriously and hits on her, “hey, shorty, whassup?  I don’t get out much and I’m kind of a dick so let’s hook up later.”  Startling gives him the look that says call my fake number later.  Starling is led to Lecter’s cell which looks like a cave.  Why?  Because where else would you keep batshit crazy cannibals but in a bat cave.  Duh!

Lecter sees Starling and thinks to himself, “Damn! you are a hottie.  When I get out of the joint how about we make a sex tape and get famous.”  Starling tries to get into Lecter’s head like he’s some kind of amateur batshit crazy psychiatrist and he brushes her off like a fly on a plate of fava beans.  She leaves but not before another crazy makes like a zoo monkey and flicks his man spunk on her face.  Bad move because Hannibal (I’m in love with a stripper) the Cannibal is pissed and Mr. Man Spunk Tosser ends up eating his own tongue.  Lecter calls Starling back and says, “My bad.  Do what I say and we’ll both win Oscars.”  Starling says, “Eat me.”  Lecter says, “Next movie.” 

Meanwhile, Buffalo (I like big butts) Bill kidnaps a senator’s daughter who should know better than to talk to strangers.  He puts her in a dungeon of his own and puts her on a Jenny Craig diet.  “It rubs the lotion on its skin.”  Shut up you sick bastard!  You’re creeping me out!

Crawford tells Starling to tell Lecter he can have anything he wants if he helps find the senator’s daughter.  Now that there is an “important” victim, the FBI is all, “whatever it takes.”  Lecter tells Starling, “Quid pro quo.”  Starling says, “I don’t eat seafood.  I like lamb.”  So she tells him about the lambs and why they won’t keep quiet in her head.  (That’s where the title comes from).  Lecter tells Starling she’s one bottle of Chianti away from being batshit crazy too.  (Not really, but if would have been cool if he had.) 

They move Lecter to a special cell (bad idea) in a Tennessee courthouse.  Lecter kills the two guards and escapes and disappears.  Starling analyzes some notes Lecter gives her and shama-lama-ding-dong she's hot on the trail of Buffalo Bill.  Turns out Buffalo Bill has an MFA in design with an emphasis in skinning large women to use for clothing.  Paris isn’t calling.  Starling tracks Bill down while the rest of the FBI is off on a wild goose chase.  What happens next?  Does she catch her psycho?  Does Lecter get away?  Does he give up psychiatry and become a contestant of Iron Chef?  Does Starling get a reality show called Cannibals Love Me?

 READ THE DAMNED BOOK OR SEE THE MOVIE.  Don’t be lazy.

You won’t be disappointed. 

“Goodbye, Clarice.”

RED DRAGON BY THOMAS HARRIS

Will Graham is an FBI forensics expert recruited by his friend Jack Crawford to track down and stop a psychopathic killer known as the Tooth Fairy.  The problem is Graham is damaged goods.  He’s one of the few Hannibal Lecter victims to get away with a functioning liver.  Graham has the scar to prove.  So screwed up is Graham by the experience, he moved to Florida got married and became a diesel mechanic.  And who could blame him. 

Graham puts the memory of his liver potentially being a finger food treat at a Lecter party behind him and joins the hunt.  Why, because secretly his new life is boring the shit out of him.  This isn’t in the book, but you have to figure.  FBI agent who tracks down the nastiest of the nasties becomes a diesel mechanic swatting skeeters in Florida.  No way. 

Graham jumps in with both feet, but not all is well.  Remember, he’s damaged goods.  The reason he’s a successful manhunter (the name of the first movie) is because he has a creepy talent for empathizing with the nutcase killers he tracks down.  This talent makes him question his own sanity.  So while he’s an eager beaver he’s got issues he needs to work out.

 

While Graham goes on the hunt.  The prey is batshit crazy killer Francis Dolarhyde.  But don’t blame him.  He’s bad because momma left him with his equally batshit crazy grandma.  So naturally, like all boys raised by crazy women, he’s got issues with the ladies.  His cleft palate isn’t helping.  Francis, the name alone would cause him problems getting laid even if he didn’t have a cleft palate, gets this thing for a painting called THE GREAT RED DRAGON and the WOMAN CLOTHED with the SUN.  (I wonder why Harris didn’t use this as the title of the book.)  Too freakin long is why!  Anyway, Francis gets his grille fixed, starts doing P90X, gets a job, but he can’t get this Red Dragon thing out of his head.  Instead of stepping back and admiring the dragon he wants to be the dragon.  Why, because he’s batshit crazy, remember?  He bites his victims with his grandma’s choppers for God’s sake!  Sick bastard!

So Grahams on the case.  He starts poking around, watches home movies of the victims and realizes the killer must have been watching the families before he killed them.  Bingo!  He gets a clue. 

Meanwhile, Francis falls in love with the only woman who could ever find him attractive blind Reba; she's blind, horny and not too bright.  Reba is hot to trot so she hooks up with Francis.  The dragon whips his tail and likes it.  (Hey, Mikey, he likes it!)  But wait a minute, here comes the after sex remorse.  Francis goes, “Am I a slut?  No, she’s a slut! No she isn’t! Yes she is!” and decides Reba the blind bimbo has got to go.  Why because she’s messing with the dragon’s mojo and Francis is batshit crazy.  Meanwhile, Graham is closing in.  He figures out the home movies are the key, duh!  While this is going on, people are dying all over.  That’s okay because we aren’t that into them anyway.

 

Francis feels the cops closing in.  He wants to be the dragon and he wants Reba too.  He has a mean jealous streak and does an O.J. on a guy walking Reba home one night.  (Is that wrong to say?)  To come up with a happy ending, Francis consults the batshit crazy manual and decides the only way to have it all is to kill Reba and himself.  Of course, like all the plans in the manual things don’t work out and Reba escapes and Francis becomes Puff the Magic Dragon.  Or does he?  What happened?   READ THE DAMNED BOOK.  Don’t be lazy.

Red Dragon uses omniscient narration smoothly from chapter to chapter and scene to scene.  The reconstructions of the murder scenes are awesome and Will Graham is super relatable.  The hunt for the killer is methodical and believable enough given the historic time frame and world of the story.  An easy read and it will make you want to watch both movies made from the book: Manhunter and Red Dragon.  Go get it.



The Church of the Dead Girls by Stephen Dobyns (1997)

           Post 911, small town hysteria seems like an interesting topic for social commentary to use as the backdrop for insanity and murder.  However, The Church of the Dead Girls was written well before the planes flew into the towers or the pentagon or dove into a field in Pennsylvania.  So while the reaction to the deaths in Aurelia, NY seemed plausible given the natural fear human beings have for the unknown, especially when the unknown is the identity of a killer on the loose, the book spends an extraordinary amount of time building the town and its inhabitants at the expense of a real story. 

            The novel begins with a prologue (which is really a flash forward) describing the entombment of the three missing dead girls in our killers attic.  As hooks go, sentence one is awesome: “This is how they looked: three dead girls propped up in three straight chairs.” (pg. 1)  For me, it doesn’t get much better than that.  The prologue (flash forward) goes on in great (by great I mean really great) description of the condition and location of the three dead girls.  By the end of the prologue, I’m like a heroin addict who has waited too long for a fix.  My skin is crawling wanting more. 

            I extend my arm and tie off my vein as I read the first sentence of chapter 1: “Afterward everyone said it began with the disappearance of the first girl, but it began earlier than that.” (pg. 9).  I think, here it comes, and it does for a while.  I feel the tingle and the warmth, but soon, my high dissipates.  This ain’t the good shit I was promised. 

            Chapter 1 and most of the chapters that follow are not bringing me closer to ecstasy but further away.  Sadly, it isn’t long before I begin to skim pages, index finger extended, searching for a verb to latch on to.  I was being told so much about everyone I don’t care about anyone. And it goes on and on, chapter after chapter that way.  My mind draws doodles in the margins.  99 bottles of beer rings in my head.

            Soon I’m wondering who the hell is telling the story.  I get this idea I’m reading a twisted version of a Claymation Christmas program narrated by a disembodied Fred Astaire and the town is really the island of the misfits.  Old Fred knows what everyone does and thinks and feels.  He knows their fears and their prejudices.  He sees through their eyes and hears what they hear.  HE IS GOD.  And like GOD his name is unknown.  I guess to speak it is to burst into flames.  The narrator mocks me “I am that I am” is a booming Cecil B. Demille Moses burning bush voice.  For those who may not converse with the almighty, the phrase translates into “shut up and accept it.”  So I try, but now my heart is filled with blasphemy. 

            Finally, some 300 pages later we get to the meat or what is supposed to be the plot.  I will not spoil it for those still wanting to read the book, but let’s just say that as a southpaw I was truly insulted.  As a reader, turning the pages with my right hand fingers, my reaction was more like, REALLY? IS THIS ALL THERE IS?  Yes, my reactions sometimes are in caps.  Talk about cliché plot!  OMG!  What Ever Happened to Baby Jane comes to Aurelia.

            Listen, who am I to criticize, right?  The writing is poetic in word selection and usage and description of the town and it’s beautiful the way Dobyn’s builds the community and you feel like you’re there and blah-blah-blah.  I was setup to read a scary suspense story and I didn’t get one.  Call me jaded.  Call me unsophisticated.  Call me slug.  Call me a victim of too many Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies or Children of the Corn viewings, whatever.  Hell, I’m not even going to go into the issues with POV anymore than I have already.  Sadly, for me the best parts of the book began and ended with Steven King’s blurb.  I would have like to have read that book.  This was no Needful Things. 

            My name is Dwight Jolivette and I approve this message.  



PSYCHO by Robert Bloch

Am I the only one who noticed this book essentially begins with, "it was a dark and stormy night."  Despite that, what a fun read.  I felt I was travelling back to a simpler, more naive time and place.  It's small town Americana where you can leave your doors open and everyone knows your name.  Mayberry with a psycho Otis.  (Otis was the fat town drunk for you young folks)

We have to judge the book by the standards of the time.  Psycho took on two major taboos: mental illness and the role of women.  What I found interesting is how the men, except for Arborgast, were very passive.  The action all came from women.  Mary stole the money, Norman's mother did the killing, Lila solved the mystery.  Talk about your women's movement.  As for the mental illness part, sadly I think the portrayal did little to diminish the stigma associated with the mentally ill.  Pyscho, the movie, was the Jaws of its day.  No one wanted to shower, no one wanted to be around "crazy people" and no one wanted to stay in hotel rooms.

I also found it interesting the way Bloch told us who the killer was pretty early on both in the actions of Norman and the persona of the mother.  Even if you somehow missed she was dead all along, you knew they were in it together.  So Psycho is not a whodunnit.  I can't say it's any kind of "dunnit."  It's a "here's what happened" narrative.

Getting back to the women in the story.  In the hotel peeping Tom scene, Norman blames Mary for teasing him as he watches her undress.  It didn't happen, but that's how he imagines it, right.  So he kills her.  He kills her because it's her fault.  Here's the thing.  She's just stolen some money.  So does Bloch make it okay to kill Mary because she's been a "bad girl" even though it may not be in the way Norman sees her?  When you think about it, Mary's stealing the money is irrelevant to the story other than to get Lila and Arbogast on the trail. Because, I have to say the idea of the private detective tracking down the money to keep everything quiet was a bit hard to swallow.  Then again, different standards for the time.

Dialogue a bit stilted and formal, but a fun read.  No longer scary I have to say, but I remember being a small boy watching the movie for the first time.  I didn't shower for a week.