by Martha Elliott ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 4, 2015
A disturbing and multifaceted exposé of both a ruthless killer and the sympathetic, merciful journalist at odds with his...
The story of a journalist’s decadelong friendship with a convicted serial rapist and murderer.
Elliott’s relationship with Michael Ross (1959-2005) began in 1995 while she was the Connecticut Law Tribune editor in chief on a long assignment to interview the death row inmate and explore “the complexities of mental illness and the death penalty.” The author writes of her initial fascination with Ross after he guiltily lobbied for his own execution after the six death sentences he’d been handed were overturned in 1987 due to unpresented key psychiatric evidence. Initially feeling imperiled, her trepidation soon dissolved once she met Ross, whom she describes as a “sensitive, articulate” Roman Catholic Cornell graduate (where his killing spree began) desperate for atonement. In chilling detail, Elliott diligently retraces Ross’ abusive childhood on a chicken farm and then moves through each of the killer’s grisly murders—eight random girls and women between the ages of 14 and 25—intimately acquainting readers with these innocent women, who were sexually violated, then strangled. While Ross considered himself possessed by a homicidal “monster within,” Elliott believed she only truly interacted with the “lonely, haunted” side of a man unable to comprehend his inner demon’s motivations. That was until she received Ross’ petrifying six-page letter describing his active paraphilia and intricate inner thought process during a ritualized rape. The author also explores Ross’ diagnosis of sexual sadism and the attempts to avert his violent compulsions via castrative female hormone therapy. A staunch opponent of capital punishment, Elliott believes Ross’ undiagnosed and untreated mental illness perpetuated his murderousness and ushered in the end result of his execution at age 45. However, readers may still bristle at her almost exculpatory rendering of him as “a caring, thoughtful person who exhibited true remorse.”
A disturbing and multifaceted exposé of both a ruthless killer and the sympathetic, merciful journalist at odds with his capital fate.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2015
ISBN: 978-1594204906
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
Share your opinion of this book
by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Share your opinion of this book
More by Elie Wiesel
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
Share your opinion of this book
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.