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From Amazon.com
You've probably never heard of Jesse Pomeroy unless you've read Caleb Carr's 1994 novel, The Alienist, which features a brief prison interview with "America's most famous lifer." But this legendary bogeyman will be hard to forget after you read his life story. Pomeroy tortured and murdered children in Boston in the 1870s. He was himself a child at the time, only 14 when he was finally arrested. Author Harold Schechter, a New York literature professor who has made a name for himself documenting nonfiction accounts of heinous crimes, deftly resurrects the past from newspaper accounts, letters, and other historical documents, including a reform school's massive volume disturbingly titled History of Boys. Schechter doesn't take the easy way out. He could have just pieced together reports and accounts, letting the record stiffly tell the tale. Instead, he blends his research into a seamless story, fascinating in its horror, as well as its ability to turn the century-old characters into real people. The reader will be pleased to find copies of engravings, photos, and sketches of Pomeroy, from his heyday as "boy-fiend," as well as his later days behind bars, when fellow inmates changed his nickname to a less-sinister "Grandpa." Schechter sets out to teach a lesson, and in Fiend he succeeds at reminding us that modern times don't have a monopoly on juvenile terror. --Jodi Mailander Farrell
From Publishers Weekly
From serial killer expert Schechter comes a grisly, hopped-up, but surprisingly well-executed narrative of the vicious crimes and long imprisonment of Jesse Pomeroy, the notorious 19th-century "Boston Boy Fiend." Schechter argues that "killer kids have always been with us," but even in the context of a history of horrifying examples of youth violence, the case of Pomeroy is appalling. An abused, deformed, impoverished child, he graduated at age 12 from animal cruelty to the ritualized torture and mutilation of younger boys. In 1872 he was caught and sentenced to six years in a reformatory. He presented a rehabilitated facade and, following his shrewish but loyal mother's campaigning, was released after 16 months. Six weeks later he killed a neighborhood girl; an indifferent constabulary failed to discover her body until after Pomeroy was apprehended for a second vicious child-murder. This confluence caused unprecedented outrage; ultimately, Pomeroy received a life sentence in solitary confinement. While Schechter has displayed a career enthusiasm for what Hannibal Lecter termed "louche" subject matter (Schechter's books on serial murderers have been titled Bestial, Depraved, Deranged, etc.), he is a deft writer and does well at re-creating from documentation the thoughts and perspectives of long-dead figures; even Pomeroy is rendered subtly, with creepy verisimilitude. Schechter ably portrays the "living death" of Pomeroy's captivity (he served 53 years, making repeated escape attempts, and had become a media curiosity by the 1920s), and captures the poignancy of the infirm Pomeroy's release, in 1929, to a prison farm, where he remained until his death in 1932. This is a memorably gothic tale of sadistic psychosis and social vengeanceAtrue-crime lovers will not want to miss it.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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First Sentence
"Dressed in the street clothes they had given him-a shabby gray suit, its baggy pants supported by galluses; a rumpled white shirt, its collar too small to button; an old silk tie that dangled halfway down his chest; and a grotesque, checkered cap that sat " Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
"Dressed in the street clothes they had given him-a shabby gray suit, its baggy pants supported by galluses; a rumpled white shirt, its collar too small to button; an old silk tie that dangled halfway down his chest; and a grotesque, checkered cap that sat " Read the first page
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Jesse H. Pomeroy, the Boston boy fiend,
By
This review is from: Fiend: The Shocking True Story Of Americas Youngest Serial Killer (Paperback)
A great tale of the youngest serial killer in American history. I don't really know how to say this without sounding really twisted but I love books like this. I'm a huge fan of abnormal psyche and I love to get into people's heads to try to find out why they do such things as these. This is the story of a young boy, Jesse, who starts torturing little boys (ages ranging from about 5-9) by leading them to a secluded place, stripping them naked and beating them and cutting them with his knife. He does this in the fashion that his father beat him and disfigures them so that they will be ugly like he is. Eventually, he starts to want more, and at 14 he commits his first murder. He is caught after he commits his second murder and is the youngest person to ever be on trial in Maryland for murder and everyone wants to see him hanged yet no one really wants to be the one to say the word. It's a good look at justice and the legal system of the late 1800's and how an unfortunate boy deals with beatings by his father, torture from boys at school for his strange eye, and all the events that lead up to the murders. I would say to anyone interested in Serial Murder or abnormal psychology to read this book. Harold Schechter is a master of true crime books and he does a great job on this one.The only reason I don't give this book five stars is because no one compares to the killer I find most interesting, H. H. Holmes.
4.0 out of 5 stars
America's youngerst serial killer,
By C.H. (Beach Park, IL) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Fiend: The Shocking True Story Of Americas Youngest Serial Killer (Paperback)
From 1871-1872 Jesse Pomeroy attacked, tortured, and sexually assaulted eight younger boys. Shipped off to reform school (he was positively idenified by his victims because of his "milky eye") he was released after less than seventeen months since he made excellent progress while in custody. Six weeks later, he abducted and murdered a ten-year-old girl; her remains were found later buried in his mother's cellar. Two weeks after that, a four-year-old boy was found murdered, whose blood was found on Pomeroy's pocketknife. Beacause of his youth, the governor wouldn't sign his death warrant, but instead remanded him to life in solitary confinement. In 1929, at age seventy-one, he was transferred to a prison farm where he died three years later. In light of teen homicides today, this is still quite shocking. By the time he was fourteen, he attacked eight children and killed two more. "I couldn't help myself", he said. This seems to be common explanation amongst children who kill, such as in the 1993 case of two Liverpool ten-year-olds who tortured and murdered a three-year old. This was only one of the many incidents of juvenile murder in the 1990's, and even as Jesse Pomeroy has faded from the minds of many, the murders commited by children continue.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Chilling.,
By
This review is from: Fiend: The Shocking True Story Of Americas Youngest Serial Killer (Paperback)
It's nice to know that youthful murderers are not just a recent phenomenon. Jesse Pomeroy makes Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold seem like choirboys. Since Jesse was only fourteen, the governor commuted his sentence from death to life in solitary without parole. Doesn't sound like much of a commutation, does it? Harold Schechter's descriptions of Jesse's crimes were haunting. I particularly liked the last two sections -- Jesse's letters to Willie Baxter, and the account of his life in prison and many escape attempts. (Not that I blame him for trying.) I like learning about lesser-known murderers instead of everything Ted Bundy all the time. Yet another good book from Harold Schechter!
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