Marrying the Hangman: A True Story of Privilege, Marriage and Murder - Hardcover

Weller, Sheila

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 039458290X ISBN 13: 9780394582900

Publisher: Random House, 1992

Synopsis

The account of the murder of Diane Whitmore Pikul describes how her wealthy and violent Wall Street husband murdered her and then won custody of her children while under indictment for her murder. 20,000 first printing. Tour.

About this title

About the Author

SHEILA WELLER is the author of the acclaimed memoir Dancing at Ciros and the New York Times bestseller Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simonand the Journey of a Generation, among other books. She is a contributor to Vanity Fair, The New York Times Book Review, and Glamour, and has written for many other magazines, winning numerous awards for her articles.

From Kirkus Reviews

Third book on the 1987 murder of Diane Pikul by her millionaire stock-analyst husband, this one the most intimate; by the author of the so-so novel Hansel and Gretel in Beverly Hills (1978). Previous tellings of this story include Richard T. Pienciak's exhaustively detailed spellbinder, Deadly Masquerade (1990), which focused largely on the murderer, Joseph Pikul; and Rafael Yglesias's novelization of the murder, The Murderer Next Door (1990), which was less satisfying but a strong read all the same. Weller once met Diane Pikul and was a close friend of Diane's best friend, who with others had long advised Diane to leave her violent husband. In the year she was murdered, Diane, 44, had worked as a publisher's assistant at Harper's magazine for seven months in an attempt to become self-supporting and had renewed her efforts to become a writer by attending a writing class led by Allan Gurganus. Weller focuses her story on Diane rather than on the crime, giving the victim as much or more space as Joe, and has interviewed many of Diane's fellow workers and writing-class members. The author's Diane, while still tied to Joe by her low income, two children, and ongoing divorce suit, is less the shrill and greedy woman of Pienciak's version, more of a sophisticate struggling to stay sane while bound to a madman. Joe comes through, as ever, as an almost mythic nut: an abused child who later became a cross-dresser, a brilliant student, and an early millionaire; then, a failure and a recovering alcoholic on the rebound financially; later, a wife- beater but loving father of two children; and, finally, an AIDS- ridden psychotic murderer released on bail and given custody of his kids--which had Manhattan in an uproar. This story is hardening into legend, with Diane here a worthy and moving foil to the outsized ego of her husband and his mishmash fantasy life. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 039458290X
• ISBN 13: 9780394582900
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 319