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A monster preyed upon the children of nineteenth-century Boston. His crimes were appalling-and yet he was little more than a child himself. When fourteen-year-old Jesse Pomeroy was arrested in 1874, a nightmarish reign of terror over an unsuspecting city came to an end. "The Boston Boy Fiend" was imprisoned at last. But the complex questions sparked by his ghastly crime spree-the hows and whys of vicious juvenile crime-were as relevant in the so-called Age of Innocence as they are today. Jesse Pomeroy was outwardly repellent in appearance, with a gruesome "dead" eye; inside, he was deformed beyond imagining. A sexual sadist of disturbing precocity, he satisfied his atrocious appetites by abducting and torturing his child victims. But soon, the teenager's bloodlust gave way to another obsession: murder. Harold Schechter, whose true-crime masterpieces are well-documented nightmares for anyone who dares to look, brings his acclaimed mix of compelling storytelling, brilliant insight, and fascinating historical documentation to Fiend-an unforgettable account from the annals of American crime.… (plus d'informations)
When Jesse Pomeroy was arrested in 1874, he was fourteen years old. When he was twelve he had abducted and tortured young boys, this lead to him being sent to reform school. He fooled people into believing he had changed, and was released. Returning to Boston, he went to work in his mother’s store, eventually killing two young children. He was dubbed “The Boston Boy Fiend”.
This book covers the life of Jesse Pomeroy, as much as is known, the crimes, the details of the investigation, trial and Pomeroy’s eventual sentence. It is also a history lesson, detailing how life was at that time, how ‘the good old days’ were not always so good. And how juveniles committing crime is not a modern day phenomenon. I know some will take exception to Pomeroy being labeled a serial killer, because he only killed two people, however, if he hadn’t been caught he would surely have killed more. He fits all the other criteria.
When reading Schechter, I have learned to carry a notebook with me, he has so much other interesting information in his books. This is another well written book that I have no problem recommending. ( )
I found this book both chilling and interesting. I will start by saying that I would not recommend this to people who have a weak stomach, as some of the crimes are described in gruesome detail. There were times when even I had to put the book down for a time and return to it later. It is interesting that, despite people's complaints about violence in today's youth, America's youngest serial killer appeared in the nineteenth century. I was amused to note that the furor about the negative influence of the media is by no means a modern phenomenon. These days, it is violent movies and video games. Back then it was the Penny Papers. If there is any lesson we can take from this book it is this: that, while the media may expand a persons repertoire of possible methods, the innate ability and desire to commit terrible acts upon their fellow human beings must already be there. ( )
Informations provenant du Partage des connaissances anglais.Modifiez pour passer à votre langue.
The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Genesis 8:21
Dédicace
Informations provenant du Partage des connaissances anglais.Modifiez pour passer à votre langue.
For my friends Miklos, Lisa, Andrei and Alex
Premiers mots
Informations provenant du Partage des connaissances anglais.Modifiez pour passer à votre langue.
The longing for a bygone age - for a time when life was slower, sweeter, simpler - is such a basic human impulse that it often blinds us to the fact that the "good old days" were a lot worse than we imagine.
Citations
Informations provenant du Partage des connaissances anglais.Modifiez pour passer à votre langue.
"The level of actual violence as measured by homicide...has never been lower...It may seem that we live in violent times, but even the famously gentle Bushmen of the kalahari have a homicide rate that eclipses those of the most notorious American cities. All appearances to the contrary, we who live in today's industrial societies stand a better chance of dying peacefully in our beds than any of our predecessors anywhere." Lyall Watson in 'Dark Nature'
The longing for a bygone age - for a time when life was slower, sweeter, simpler - is such a basic human impulse that it often blinds us to the fact that the "good old days" were a lot worse than we imagine.
Living at a time of pervasive pollution, we yearn for those delightful pre-automotive days when the air was free of car exhaust - forgetting that the streets of every major nineteenth-century city reeked of horse piss, manure, and the decomposing carcasses of worked-to-death nags.
Reading about the pathetic state of public education, we grow teary-eyed for the age of the "Little Red Schoolhouse" - completely unaware of the deplorable conditions of nineteenth-century classrooms (according to one authoritative source, "a survey of Brooklyn schools in 1893 listed eighteen classes with 80 - 100 students; one class had 158").
Affronted by the nonstop barrage of media violence, we pine for a return to a more civilzed time - conveniently forgetting that a hundred years ago, public hangings were a popular form of family entertainment, and that turn-of-the-century "penny papers" routinely ran illustrated front-page stories about axe-murders, sex-killings, child-torture, and other ghastly crimes.
...there is some abiding human need to imagine the past as a paradise - a golden age of innocence from which we have been tragically expelled. But a dispassionate look at the historical facts suggests that there are few, if any, contemporary problems - from gang violence to drug use to tabloid sensationalism - that didn't plague the past. And often in more dire and insidious forms.
Virtually every notorious case of juvenile murder in recent years has been blamed, at least partly, on media violence.
"A child dying, dies but once; but the mother dies a hundred times." Reverend Mr Beecher
Derniers mots
Informations provenant du Partage des connaissances anglais.Modifiez pour passer à votre langue.
Fifty-eight years after he was first jailed for the most heinous crimes ever committed by a juvenile, Jesse Harding Pomeroy was free at last.
A monster preyed upon the children of nineteenth-century Boston. His crimes were appalling-and yet he was little more than a child himself. When fourteen-year-old Jesse Pomeroy was arrested in 1874, a nightmarish reign of terror over an unsuspecting city came to an end. "The Boston Boy Fiend" was imprisoned at last. But the complex questions sparked by his ghastly crime spree-the hows and whys of vicious juvenile crime-were as relevant in the so-called Age of Innocence as they are today. Jesse Pomeroy was outwardly repellent in appearance, with a gruesome "dead" eye; inside, he was deformed beyond imagining. A sexual sadist of disturbing precocity, he satisfied his atrocious appetites by abducting and torturing his child victims. But soon, the teenager's bloodlust gave way to another obsession: murder. Harold Schechter, whose true-crime masterpieces are well-documented nightmares for anyone who dares to look, brings his acclaimed mix of compelling storytelling, brilliant insight, and fascinating historical documentation to Fiend-an unforgettable account from the annals of American crime.
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This book covers the life of Jesse Pomeroy, as much as is known, the crimes, the details of the investigation, trial and Pomeroy’s eventual sentence. It is also a history lesson, detailing how life was at that time, how ‘the good old days’ were not always so good. And how juveniles committing crime is not a modern day phenomenon. I know some will take exception to Pomeroy being labeled a serial killer, because he only killed two people, however, if he hadn’t been caught he would surely have killed more. He fits all the other criteria.
When reading Schechter, I have learned to carry a notebook with me, he has so much other interesting information in his books. This is another well written book that I have no problem recommending. (