My life among the serial killers
by Seamus Sweeney
[ bookreviews ]
As Helen Morrison acknowledges, in a passing reference describing Gordon Burn's Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son as "one of the few good books written about serial killers", the serial killer phenomenon has not spawned much great writing. True crime books are typically stodgily written and disturbingly voyeuristic, a queasy combination, and serial killer books possess these negative qualities to a heightened degree.
This, while not badly written or excessively deep in gore, is no masterpiece either. The prose, for which we presumably have to thank Harold Goldberg rather than Morrison, is as stolidly bland as every other ghosted celebrity bio.
There's a frustrating lack of an index and references, and a general vagueness describing theoretical matters that sits oddly with someone who has written "four academic books and over 125 published articles in her field". Morrison writes of her trip to Brazil to interview the Rio-based serial killer, "I read a story by a true crime writer who said that there has been a conspicuous increase in the incidence of serial murder in countries whose political landscape has recently changed" Which true crime writer? Where did she read it? We don't know.
Like other books written in this genre (for instance, John Douglas' Mindhunter and Jean-Francois Abgrall's Inside the Mind of a Killer), there's a certain amount of score-settling here. Not against any of the killers, but against law-enforcement officials and fellow psychiatrists whom she feels didn't respect her or her thinking. As a female in a macho world, Morrison often felt particularly out of the law-enforcement loop.
This is undoubtedly true, but the constant emphasis on slights and fallings-out grates. The reader reviews of this book on amazon.com - a neat snapshot of the thoughts of serial-killer-lit fanatics - excoriate Morrison for her me-me-me tendencies. There must be some element of the make-up of those who work on serial killer cases, or at least those who write books about it, that leads them to argue with their colleagues and superiors. And one learns more about Dr Morrison's husband, professional development and parenting style than is strictly necessary.
Despite all the above, I found this book very readable - at times compulsively so. Serial killing is not a new phenomenon, as Morrison shows. However, it does surely exert a greater hold on the contemporary imagination than ever before.
The longest sections deal with Morrison's encounters with Richard Macek, the "mad biter" of Illinois who chewed on the body parts of his victims, the famous John Wayne Gacy, predatory killer by night, model citizen and part time clown by day (the prose style is catching). The books is strong on describing the interviews with Macek, the gradual development of their rapport - in letters, Macek would confuse her with his wife. Gacy was "Macek in a different body"; not only his words but even his body language and posture recalled Macek. Morrison began to think that serial killers had far more in common than just the obvious.
Two of Britain's serial killers feature - Peter Sutcliffe and the Wests. Rose West was the only killer who corresponded with Morrison not to consent to release of their letters. The story of 25 Cromwell Road is well told, and those who have forgotten can relive the dreadful story that must surely still cast a pall over Gloucester.
Morrison and Goldberg discuss these cases clearly and well. And one feels the terrible frisson of the presence of evil, reading for instance the letters of Albert Fish, the cannibal who terrorised New York children in the 1930s.
Historically, Morrison surveys the careers of such figures as Gilles de Rais, the contemporary of Joan of Arc who killed, according to the clerical indictment, 140 children in 14 years; Elizabeth Bathory, who bathed in the blood of virgins to preserve her beauty; and Vlad Tempes, the Transylvanian ruler, impaling enthusiast and alleged model for Dracula. Neither Bathory nor Tempes are serial killers in Morrison's eyes, since both killed for identifiable reasons - one political and martial, the other the pursuit of beauty. De Rais however makes the cut, so to speak. Morrison feels free to comment definitively on cases that by their very nature are shrouded in mythologising and historical obfuscation.
She is bracingly sceptical of theorists like the anonymous crime writer she read en route to Brazil, or those who argue that the development of highways and railroads has been central to the serial killer phenomenon. For Morrison, the serial killer has always existed. The means used may have aided the crime, but the killings would have taken place somehow. Ed Gein, the murderer who inspired both The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Psycho, committed his crimes with a few miles of his childhood home. She is dismissive of theories that "society and parenting and even accidents that injure the brain have little to do with creating a serial killer."
So what is Morrison's theory? In the final chapter, she states it bluntly: "I am firmly convinced that there is something in the genes that leads a person to become a serial killer. In other words, he is a serial killer before he is born." Some will be horrified by the hardcore genetic determinism, and just what is the "something in the genes"? Morrison discusses a Dutch geneticist, Hans Brunner, who has found a gene mutation leading a predominance in the brain of the enzyme monoamine oxidase A in a family "predisposed to violence" Again, the book gives no reference for this research. Morrison claims to have interviewed over 80 serial killers in the course of her research - an impressively large number at first (though only a few are mentioned here) but enough to make such generalisations from, especially considering that the majority of the interview were in a role as psychiatrist for the defence.
Morrison is rather disappointed when a pathologist finds nothing abnormal with Gacy's brain after his execution. The theorising, with blanket claims like "serial killers are never psychopaths" abounding, is the least impressive part of the book. One feels that Morrison, who obviously does know an awful lot about serial killers, was induced to dumb it all down for the sake of the sales figures.
It would certainly be too much to class My Life Among the Serial Killers as among "the few good books written about serial killers", but pace the amazon.com reviewers, it is a serviceable account of a professional life lived among these unsettling figures. It is not great writing, many of the individual cases discussed are more fully dealt with elsewhere, and her theorising is unconvincing to say the least but the undeniable fascination these figures exert hold one's interest. One to borrow from the library rather than fork out your hard-earned cash for.
