2016: Bedlam in Print
Here it is, the first installment of my “Bedlam in Print” overview of the previous year’s publishing output.
KEEP THE RIVER ON YOUR RIGHT
This is one of the most famous anthropological accounts in existence, and also one of the most misunderstood.
MOM KILLS KIDS AND SELF
That title tells the story of this odd and troubling late seventies artifact, a somewhat experimental, psychologically based account of grief and madness.
THE MARTYR
THE MARTYR is easily one of the most wrenching and upsetting novels of any sort to emerge from a decade that saw more than its share of disturbing fiction.
IF I DID IT and “The Killer”
Here we have the end product of one of the most bizarre sagas in publishing history
EAT HIM IF YOU LIKE
Definitely one for the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction category, a novelized account of the “Affaire de Hautefaye” that occurred on August 16, 1870.
BY SANCTION OF THE VICTIM
A docu-novel based on the notorious 1965 Sylvia Likens murder, and an object lesson, I believe, in how not to write such a book.
SYBIL
This is the famous, multi-Emmy award winning 1976 TV production starring Sally Field as Sybil, a real woman possessed by 16 different personalities
WOLF CREEK
Hard, mean, no-nonsense horror from Down Under, proving that Aussie-sploitation is alive and well. It’s too bad, though, about that crummy ending!
MURDER ONE
A solid fact-based account of mass murder, thoughtful and naturalistic enough to satisfy true crime buffs while still bloody enough to sate most gore hounds