Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America's Most Fiendish Killer

Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America's Most Fiendish Killer
by Harold Schechter

Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America's Most Fiendish Killer
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Book Summary Information

Author: Harold Schechter
Edition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1990-10-01
ISBN: 0671678752
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Pocket

Book Reviews of Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America's Most Fiendish Killer

Book Review: Boring
Summary: 1 Stars

I am glad to see I am not alone. I quit half way through. The first half was somewhat interesting but it just went on and on.

Summary of Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America's Most Fiendish Killer

LURED FROM THE SAFETY OF HOME -- INTO THE JAWS OF HELL

"America's principal chronicler of its greatest psychopathic killers" (The Boston Book Review), Harold Schechter shatters the myth that violent crime is a modern phenomenon -- with this seamless true account of unvarnished horror from the early twentieth century. Journey inside the demented mind of Albert Fish -- pedophile, sadist, and cannibal killer -- and discover that bloodlust knows no time or place....

On a warm spring day in 1928, a kindly, white-haired man appeared at the Budd family home in New York City, and soon persuaded Mr. and Mrs. Budd to let him take their adorable little girl, Grace, on an outing. The Budds never guessed that they had entrusted their child to a monster. After a relentless six-year search and nationwide press coverage, the mystery of Grace Budd's disappearance was solved -- and a crime of unparalleled gore and revulsion was revealed to a stunned American public. What Albert Fish did to Grace Budd, and perhaps fifteen other young children, caused experts to pronounce him the most deranged human being they had ever seen.


Harold Schechter is a professor of American culture at Queens College (CUNY) who takes an academic interest in the history of violent folklore: "Our pop entertainments aren't necessarily more brutal than those of the past," he writes. "They are simply ... more state of the art." In this book Schechter turns his keen historian's gaze on real-life serial killer Albert Fish, who killed--and ate--as many as 15 children in New York City in the 20s. Fish resembled a meek, kindly, white-haired grandfather, but was actually an intense sadomasochist whose sexual fetishes included almost everything known to psychiatry. For example, he stuck 29 needles into his pelvic region. Apparently Schechter, while writing his book Deviant about Ed Gein, asked Robert Bloch (author of Psycho), "Why are people so fascinated by Ed Gein?" Bloch answered, "Because they haven't heard about Albert Fish."
Also recommended: Depraved, Schechter's book about Herman Mudgett a.k.a. Dr. H. H. Holmes.

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