Since my halcyon days of Potter-consumption have passed, I've been in a fret trying to find what to read next. I may've already posted about this, I am pretty sure I did, but right now, after my last epic post, I'm too lazy to do any searching and linking. Anyway, I started reading a book the bf's been nagging at me to read for three years or more, Final Truth: The Autobiography of a Serial Killer, by Donald Gaskins and Walter Earle.
The stuff of nightmares. Long, vivid nightmares. Donald "Pee Wee" Gaskins was the redneck real-life version of American Psycho's Patrick Bateman, using every one of his brain cells to think up more horrific ways of torturing people. He'd wander the aisles of hardware stores, browsing new tools and new terrible ways to use them. The book is told first-person, we are there, we feel what he's feeling, we think what he's thinking. It's a terrible place to be and I think part of why I'm reading it so quickly (I should be done with it tonight, after beginning it yesterday) is I want to be done with it, to not have this maniac in my head for too long.
But it's worth reading, and it's incredibly well-written. Gaskins himself didn't write the thing, it's compiled from interviews with Earle, though Gaskins approved every word before he was executed. There's not even a real tally of how many people he killed, he only (only?) got charged with nine murders the first round, and then a tenth when he killed another inmate in jail, but from his telling of all the details he must've murdered dozens upon dozens more.
I find it odd that I'd never heard of Gaskins until the bf pressured me to read the book. Gaskins did most of his killing in rural South Carolina, around the same area that the bf is from, in the 1960's and 70's, so of course the bf knew about him, but online information is scarce, and no one I've ever asked about it has heard his name. Not to imply that a serial killer should have name-recognition for having been so prolific, since that's an implication that makes me feel dirty, but Gaskins is a pretty remarkable character.
After this I am looking forward to something a little less nightmare-inducing, so I think I'm going to hop right into the world of the five books of The Dark Is Rising Sequence, by Susan Cooper. Supposed to be a classic of fantasy lit, but I've kept myself from learning too much about it before trying it out.
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The stuff of nightmares. Long, vivid nightmares. Donald "Pee Wee" Gaskins was the redneck real-life version of American Psycho's Patrick Bateman, using every one of his brain cells to think up more horrific ways of torturing people. He'd wander the aisles of hardware stores, browsing new tools and new terrible ways to use them. The book is told first-person, we are there, we feel what he's feeling, we think what he's thinking. It's a terrible place to be and I think part of why I'm reading it so quickly (I should be done with it tonight, after beginning it yesterday) is I want to be done with it, to not have this maniac in my head for too long.
But it's worth reading, and it's incredibly well-written. Gaskins himself didn't write the thing, it's compiled from interviews with Earle, though Gaskins approved every word before he was executed. There's not even a real tally of how many people he killed, he only (only?) got charged with nine murders the first round, and then a tenth when he killed another inmate in jail, but from his telling of all the details he must've murdered dozens upon dozens more.
I find it odd that I'd never heard of Gaskins until the bf pressured me to read the book. Gaskins did most of his killing in rural South Carolina, around the same area that the bf is from, in the 1960's and 70's, so of course the bf knew about him, but online information is scarce, and no one I've ever asked about it has heard his name. Not to imply that a serial killer should have name-recognition for having been so prolific, since that's an implication that makes me feel dirty, but Gaskins is a pretty remarkable character.
After this I am looking forward to something a little less nightmare-inducing, so I think I'm going to hop right into the world of the five books of The Dark Is Rising Sequence, by Susan Cooper. Supposed to be a classic of fantasy lit, but I've kept myself from learning too much about it before trying it out.
.
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