My Life Among the Serial Killers
After a couple of disappointing forays into the world of fiction, I decided to pull this one out of the pile of candidates for my next reading adventure. Sounded pretty sexy to me. Alas, though, my losing streak continues. Believe it or not, this book was actually BORING.
The book, written by “Dr.” Helen Morrison, a forensic psychiatrist, purports to provide her insights from the more than eighty serial murderers she’s interviewed over the years, including famous guys like John Wayne Gacy. Unfortunately, I learned absolutely nothing from this book, other than that it was apparently a struggle for an attractive young female doctor to get respect from prison guards in the 1970’s. Oh, and Dr. Morrison got married to a hot neurosurgeon. Oh, and did I mention that she claims to have been attractive in the 1970’s?
Morrison’s findings represent a great example of the difference between “issue spotting” and “problem solving”. She seems to have no problem pointing out (without any demonstrative proof to back it up) shortfalls in others’ theories about what makes a serial killer tick (e.g., she dismisses abusive parents and physical trauma as causes). But she fails to notice that she has nothing to support her eventual conclusions, which aren’t really laid out for the reader until the epilogue. She thinks that there’s a serial killer gene, and that a person either is or isn’t a serial killer from the moment of conception. Uhm, thanks, doc. I guess that solves it.
As you can probably tell, I found this author arrogant and not very credible. It also doesn’t help her case that she seems to think that serial killers are in some way less deserving of punishment than your standard mass murderer, because mass murderers and psychopaths can actually be treated, whereas serial killers are essentially “hardwired” to be serial killers and so we shouldn’t blame them for their untreatable illness.
Books, Non-Fiction, Review | Shaft | 
April 12, 2005 9:22 am
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By DJ Cayenne, April 12, 2005 @ 5:02 pm
Say, what’s the difference between a mass murderer and a serial killer?
By Shaft, April 23, 2005 @ 7:42 pm
Hmmm. Maybe I did learn something after all. According to the good doctor, a mass murderer (who may in fact be a psychopath with no conscience) is someone who kills a bunch of people but at least has some misguided motive (paranoia, etc.). Timothy McVeigh comes to mind. A serial murderer is someone who kills repeatedly just because. They often don’t know why, and they also feel no guilt or remorse.
By DJ Cayenne, April 12, 2005 @ 10:03 pm
OK, so it wasn’t completely worthless.