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The Psychopath Machine

Name: The Psychopath Machine
Author: Steve Smith
ISBN: 978-1-4602-8783-5

A STORY OF RESISTANCE AND SURVIVAL

by Steve Smith ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 21, 2016

A good contribution to the history of psychiatric malpractice, as well as an engrossing personal memoir.

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In this debut memoir, a Canadian man tells of his ordeal as the subject of radical psychological experimentation, and of how he subsequently put his life back together.

Smith writes that his 1968 arrest for car theft at the age of 18, even though the charges were later dropped, “began my trip into hell, which was to last eight months and haunt me the rest of my life.” He was sent to Oak Ridge, a forensic mental health facility in Midland, Ontario, where he says that a doctor told him he was a “psychopath” and subjected him to treatment that included large doses of hallucinogens and other drugs, sleep deprivation, and being handcuffed to fellow inmates (“rapists and killers determined to convince me I was insane”). After his release, the author went through many ups and downs, sometimes flush with cash, sometimes homeless. He was involved in various crimes, including recruiting girls into prostitution: “I have no excuse or explanation, only that I was young and didn’t know any better,” he says. Stealing cigarettes sent him to Burwash Correctional Centre, where he did well and learned new skills, but an escape attempt landed him back in Oak Ridge and then in Kingston Penitentiary. Upon his release, Smith reunited with his brother, partied a lot, and traveled through Mexico and Central America, having many adventures. He also pursued a class-action lawsuit against the Oak Ridge doctor, not to his entire satisfaction. The author eventually married and began a successful plastic fabrication business. After a somewhat confusing opening section—in which the author tells of meeting Peter Woodcock but doesn’t explain who he is for readers unfamiliar with the Canadian serial killer—Smith writes very expressively about his own confusion, despair, and anger. The book sheds light on therapeutic practices considered cutting-edge in their time, but which now seem barbaric. Many details here have appeared in other sources, but Smith’s description of Woodcock’s secret “Brotherhood” organization, and his own subsequent involvement with it, is difficult to verify. The author has a good eye for telling details, though, including heartbreaking ones, as in his description of girls on the “Indian bus” in public school who would throw notes out the window saying “HELP ME.” He makes his tangled story readable and absorbing.

A good contribution to the history of psychiatric malpractice, as well as an engrossing personal memoir.

Pub Date: July 21, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-4602-8783-5

Page Count: 216

Publisher: FriesenPress

Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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SLEEPERS

by Lorenzo Carcaterra ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 10, 1995

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An extraordinary true tale of torment, retribution, and loyalty that's irresistibly readable in spite of its intrusively melodramatic prose. Starting out with calculated, movie-ready anecdotes about his boyhood gang, Carcaterra's memoir takes a hairpin turn into horror and then changes tack once more to relate grippingly what must be one of the most outrageous confidence schemes ever perpetrated. Growing up in New York's Hell's Kitchen in the 1960s, former New York Daily News reporter Carcaterra (A Safe Place, 1993) had three close friends with whom he played stickball, bedeviled nuns, and ran errands for the neighborhood Mob boss. All this is recalled through a dripping mist of nostalgia; the streetcorner banter is as stilted and coy as a late Bowery Boys film. But a third of the way in, the story suddenly takes off: In 1967 the four friends seriously injured a man when they more or less unintentionally rolled a hot-dog cart down the steps of a subway entrance. The boys, aged 11 to 14, were packed off to an upstate New York reformatory so brutal it makes Sing Sing sound like Sunnybrook Farm. The guards continually raped and beat them, at one point tossing all of them into solitary confinement, where rats gnawed at their wounds and the menu consisted of oatmeal soaked in urine. Two of Carcaterra's friends were dehumanized by their year upstate, eventually becoming prominent gangsters. In 1980, they happened upon the former guard who had been their principal torturer and shot him dead. The book's stunning denouement concerns the successful plot devised by the author and his third friend, now a Manhattan assistant DA, to free the two killers and to exact revenge against the remaining ex-guards who had scarred their lives so irrevocably. Carcaterra has run a moral and emotional gauntlet, and the resulting book, despite its flaws, is disturbing and hard to forget. (Film rights to Propaganda; author tour)

Pub Date: July 10, 1995

ISBN: 0-345-39606-5

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1995

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
NONNA MARIA AND THE CASE OF THE LOST TREASURE
by Lorenzo Carcaterra

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NONNA MARIA AND THE CASE OF THE STOLEN NECKLACE
by Lorenzo Carcaterra

- BOOK REVIEW
THREE DREAMERS
by Lorenzo Carcaterra

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DRAFT NO. 4

ON THE WRITING PROCESS

by John McPhee ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 5, 2017

A superb book about doing his job by a master of his craft.

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The renowned writer offers advice on information-gathering and nonfiction composition.

The book consists of eight instructive and charming essays about creating narratives, all of them originally composed for the New Yorker, where McPhee (Silk Parachute, 2010, etc.) has been a contributor since the mid-1960s. Reading them consecutively in one volume constitutes a master class in writing, as the author clearly demonstrates why he has taught so successfully part-time for decades at Princeton University. In one of the essays, McPhee focuses on the personalities and skills of editors and publishers for whom he has worked, and his descriptions of those men and women are insightful and delightful. The main personality throughout the collection, though, is McPhee himself. He is frequently self-deprecating, occasionally openly proud of his accomplishments, and never boring. In his magazine articles and the books resulting from them, McPhee rarely injects himself except superficially. Within these essays, he offers a departure by revealing quite a bit about his journalism, his teaching life, and daughters, two of whom write professionally. Throughout the collection, there emerge passages of sly, subtle humor, a quality often absent in McPhee’s lengthy magazine pieces. Since some subjects are so weighty—especially those dealing with geology—the writing can seem dry. There is no dry prose here, however. Almost every sentence sparkles, with wordplay evident throughout. Another bonus is the detailed explanation of how McPhee decided to tackle certain topics and then how he chose to structure the resulting pieces. Readers already familiar with the author’s masterpieces—e.g., Levels of the Game, Encounters with the Archdruid, Looking for a Ship, Uncommon Carriers, Oranges, and Coming into the Country—will feel especially fulfilled by McPhee’s discussions of the specifics from his many books.

A superb book about doing his job by a master of his craft.