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Fiend : The Shocking True Story Of Americas Youngest Serial Killer
by Harold Schechter
ISBN: 067101448X
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newspaper accounts, letters, and other historical documents, including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
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