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15 Serial Killers: Docufictions
by Harold Jaffe
Category: True Crime/Horror
Description: Taking as his text Georges Bataille's insight that "only at the extremes is there freedom," critically acclaimed "guerrilla writer" Harold Jaffe documents Bataille's aperçu with 15 bone-chilling illustrations. Manson, Starkweather, Speck, Son of Sam, the Night Stalker, Aileen Wuornos, the Unabomber, Dahmer, Bundy, Gacy, Kemper, Kevorkian and Kissinger are not merely present and accounted for, they are rendered into a "reality TV" that you've never seen before. Widely praised as a virtuoso stylist, Jaffe employs a number of narrative stratagems, such as letters, monologues, interviews and "unsituated dialogues" to torque the flattened, cartoon-like serial killers into a potently unnerving third dimension. As in False Positive, Straight Razor, Eros Anti-Eros and Sex for the Millennium, Jaffe's "docufictions" are at the same time lucid, intricate, gruesome, infinitely sad, and hilarious. At the end we are left with a profoundly incisive commentary on America's insatiable consumption of extremity, conveniently masked as moral condemnation.
eBook Publisher: Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2003
eBookwise Release Date: February 2005
 
20 Reader Ratings:
Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [269 KB]
Words: 35116
Reading time: 100-140 min.
"As in previous works by Jaffe, 15 Serial Killers looks at serial killers through a unique point of view that resists glamorization, and it is effective at reaching deeply into the hic et nunc of the situation--one cannot but admire Jaffe's courage (and gall) in using these notorious figures as the inspiration for "docufiction." The potential of 'docufiction' is philosophically and narratologically rich."--Jeffrey R. DeLeo, American Book Review
"If you are into today's monsters and are frustrated by the lack of originality pushed out there, then this is the book for you."--Mike Purfield, Hacker's Source "Harold Jaffe shines a distinctly contemporary light on the pervasive unthinking assumptions of our current culture."--Larry Fondation, Electronic Book Review "Certain parts of the book had me wondering if he was actually there, hanging out with the killers, sharing a six-pack with them, and watching the way they tore their victims apart. 15 Serial Killers is a flashback into America's horrid past, delightfully written so the reader can relate to the fifteen psychopaths Jaffe describes, and sometimes becomes."--Stephanie Simpson-Woods, The Midwest Book Review
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