Fiend by Harold Schechter
The last of the four serial killer books my freind lent me.
This one is particularly interesting to me as it takes place in Boston in the last quarter of the 19th century, a period I’ve spent some time studying. What strikes me about this book is the sloppy fact checking. Whether this is true of the other Schechter books or not, I have no way of knowing, but things as simple as place names are way off. For example, Boston does not, and as far as I know, never has had a jail called “Tombs”: that’s New York; there is no Dorchester Street, it’s Dorchester Avenue (although I’m willing to consider there may, at one time, have been a Dot Street); there is no such thing as South Boston Bay, it’s Dorchester Bay; and on and on. None of this is materially significant, but it diminishes the book’s credibility somewhat.
It’s also very repetitious and constantly drawing parallels (whether warranted or not) with modern serial killers like John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer. While I suppose some comparison can be made, at least with respect to the psychopathy of all of them, the point really only needs to be made once. Likewise, endlessly comparing the point about the public blaming dime novels, in Pomeroy’s case, with violent video games and movies in later teen killers.
All that said, the book is worth reading to shed light on a “trial of the century” about a century ago. Pomeroy was imprisoned in 1874 and finally died in captivity some 60 years later, with nearly 50 of those years spent in solitary confinement. Is that humane? Just? Necessary?
