Streetcleaner: The Yorkshire Ripper Case on Trial - Softcover

Jouve, Nicole Ward

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0714528846 ISBN 13: 9780714528847

Publisher: Marion Boyars, 1988

Synopsis

Book by Nicole Ward Jouve

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

This book on Britain's notorious serial killer of the 1970s is a feminist contribution to the growing literature on the case. Written by a Frenchwoman living in England, the story is highly subjective and utilizes psychology, feminism and linguistics in its exploration of the case as symptomatic of the situation of women. Jouve discusses working-class attitudes toward women in Britain's dying industrial North and argues that the police did not trouble much about catching the murderer as he was killing only prostitutes. She is perceptive in treating the personality of the killer, Peter Sutcliffe, a weak and effeminate "mama's boy" so out of place in his class that he could prove his power over women in only one way. Much of the linguistic analysis, however, is tortured and at worst silly, and the book ends with a gratuitous bit of fiction. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Jouve, an English professor, presents a feminist interpretation of the murders of women committed by Peter Sutcliffe, the "Yorkshire Ripper." Her aim is critical analysis rather than story re-creation. Using published accounts of the case, especially Gordon Burn's Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son ( LJ 1/85), she draws on psychology, linguistics, myth, and literature to produce a dissertation on male violence and the social pressures that transformed Sutcliffe from a shy, effeminate boy into an obsessed killer. General readers will find the writing obscure and difficult and, as the author says, "it may be objected that . . . the speculations are idle, pushed too far." Still, Jouve is sometimes on the mark and her conclusions about Sutcliffe's psychopathy are persuasive. Primarily for academic collections. Gregor A. Preston, Univ. of California Lib., Davis
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Marion Boyars
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0714528846
• ISBN 13: 9780714528847
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224