Working in a bookstore gets you super familiar with a bunch of difference genres real fast. Not going to lie, it's pretty impressive to be able to recommend a book to someone even if it's in a genre I completely do NOT read (romance, science fiction). Fun party trick. Anyway, some genres I liked more than others- I love sociology but don't like biology. My favorite customer in the whole world (a doctor at University of Kentucky's hospital) always made recommendations that were far and away too smart for me, but it definitely opened my eyes to what I might aspire to comprehend one day.
Anyway, my least favorite genre of books to help people find was true crime. I hated, loathed looking for books in that section, not only because it was completely disorganized but because I hate everything it stood for. I feel similarly to court TV, any coverage of any terrible crimes... anything that lends huge amounts of attention to truly heinous, unspeakable crimes. The Petit murder trial is here in New Haven and I can't seem to be able to avoid it because it's EVERYWHERE. I see the news vans at the courthouse, the reporters, the cameras, all trying desperately to get an interview with or a picture of this man whose life has been absolutely destroyed.
Why would you read something like this? Why would you read something so gruesome, so terrible, so horrifying abject? Not to mention true. Not only is it a disgusting crime, but it's exploiting someone's personal tragedy. Did the family give permission for their murdered loved one's story to be splashed across several hundred pages? Did they get money from the sale of the book to fund years of therapy?
Make up all the fiction you want. Create fictional crimes and murders and whatever, but leave real people out of it. It makes me absolutely sick with grief that these families where something has gone terribly wrong, like the Army captain's wife that killed her two teenagers, are all of a sudden in the media spotlight, asked to make statements when their lives have completely and totally fallen apart. We were sitting at lunch with AC's parents the other day when they had a huge segment about the Caylee Anthony case on the TV at the pizza place. I don't want to know, don't need to know, about this little girls disappearance (murder?). It's disgusting, heartbreaking, and while it's good to be aware of what's going on in the world, there's a fine line between news and exploitation.
Can you explain this to me? Give me a reason why this whole crime obsession exists? And more importantly, would you want your family tragedy written about like this and if not, how do you justify reading about someone else's?
Can you explain this to me? Give me a reason why this whole crime obsession exists? And more importantly, would you want your family tragedy written about like this and if not, how do you justify reading about someone else's?
6 comments:
I'm all for a good murder mystery book but it's got to be fiction. I don't know someone can stomach a true story like that and like you said, did the family get royalties from that publishing or give permission. :(
I'm totally with you on this one. I think it's so sad that people feel the need to exploit other people's hardships.
Hm. This is a tough one for me. I wouldn't purchase a true crime book for my regular reading, but I have had to purchase some of them for classes in college. I was taking a few crime related psychology classes (women in crime, serial killers, etc), and as part of the courses we would have to study a few notable crimes in depth. In those cases, it made sense to buy the books...and I do have to admit that the classes were very interesting. However, my interest was academic, so I guess that is different than someone who just buys those books for pleasure. I'm not sure what is pleasurable about reading them...
As for the Casey Anthony trial going on right now, I have to admit that I'm completely sucked in. The jury was selected from the county I live in (thank goodness I didn't get a jury summons), and our news station is airing the trial live. I do find it fascinating to hear the line of questioning/see how the lawyers are handling everything. Justin and I are having quite the time this week discussing everything so far. I would like to see whoever did harm that little girl get brought to justice though.
Yea I have never really thought about this before. I think there'd be a difference between more generalized or historical stories, and like, this was recently in the news so I wrote a book about it stories. Because I find stories about serial killers and stuff like that fascinating, but I think stuff like the Lacey Peterson story, etc, can be just really hard to read, and hard on the family too.
Like Katie said above, I've read a lot of true crime type books for my degrees (psych & criminology). I don't read the "how I murdered this person" type books, but I've read a lot of books that would be in the true crime section. I've had to find that section at bookstores several times for classes.
I don't find sensationalized stories in true crime all that interesting, but I do get caught up in the more analytical and study ones. I read this true crime novel on a gang rape in New Jersey in the late 80s for my victimology class this past semester that was written by a journalist and it was one of the best things I've ever read. He took a horrific crime and analyzed it from a psychological, sociological and anthropological perspective that really shined an unusual light on the American culture and this kind of crime. But the author did it in the right way, where he kept the victim's identity anonymous and asked permission of people or used names only if they were public record. It was tasteful and interesting to me, but I can certainly understand why this genre would be off-putting to many others.
I used the word shined above and I'm 90% sure that was the wrong word. I guess it's bad either way because I'm unsure what it would have been. Ha! Ok, back to regular commenting now.
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