Stacy Eisenberg

Skip this one

Revisado: 01-03-22

Eli Stutzman’s crimes would have made great material for a true crime novel, with his Amish upbringing and the queer counterculture of the 1980s providing a rich backdrop, but Olsen wastes this opportunity. He spends too much time on details of people and places that aren’t really central to the story. It’s an attempt to shock the reader by way of equating Stutzman’s gayness with the severity of his crimes—“Look how gay this f*cker is, of course he killed people!”—when the exploration of Stutzman’s very real depravity could have been much more nuanced, robust, and compelling. The quotes from homophobic law enforcement officers—whom Olsen somehow thinks are quotable in the 21st century—just drive home the author’s discomfort with the subject matter. At best, a scatterbrained book; I am an addict of true crime novels but I gave up rewinding this one trying to keep all the inconsequential names and dates straight. Skip it!

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This Guy Must Be a Real Buzzkill at Parties

Revisado: 08-22-21

I give this book two stars for the interesting and little-known stats the author shares about serial killers in the first few chapters, although as a true crime aficionado, there were many that I could have guessed without having to read them (e.g. that serial killers are truly rare phenomena). But to suggest that the average citizen has some kind of “moral responsibility” to “understand the true motivations” of serial killers—especially after we have just been informed that there are only “25 of them operating in the US at any given time”—is a bit vapid. I can think of at least 4 or 5 legislative changes we could shoulder a “moral responsibility” for in the US that would make victims *less vulnerable* to murderous maniacs like Gary Ridgeway (hello, legalizing sex work?) but as far as the true motivations behind the behavior of that most minuscule percentage of the population, well, I’m glad they’re rare, and grateful they’re being studied by criminal profilers. This book is pedantic and repetitive, and the author’s insistence that the “blurring of fact and fiction” by the “news and entertainment media” is somehow harmful to society when it comes to serial killers—a claim that he makes repeatedly without ever really fleshing out his argument—gives me the sense that he’s the type of dude who likes to bore you by knowing too many irrelevant details and fancy academic terms related to an otherwise really fascinating subject. Unless you’re like me and get this book for free with your Audible sub, save your money for this year’s round of Halloween flicks instead. ;)

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