15 Serial Killers: Docufictions - Softcover

Jaffe, Professor Harold

Softcover

ISBN 10: 097450310X ISBN 13: 9780974503103

Publisher: Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2003

Synopsis

If you enjoy the show Mind Hunter—

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.

“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 nuc 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.”
—American 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 

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

With his usual brilliant blend of deadpan humor and uncanny psychological insight, Jaffe takes the likes of Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, Son of Sam, and the Unabomber and transforms them from tabloid icons into complex fictional characters. What do Jeffrey Dahmer and Henry Kissinger have in common? Read this book and find out. —Stephen-Paul Martin

With 15 Serial Killers Harold Jaffe continues his relentless exploration of 'dangerous' territory. He's a rare literary pioneer—brave, brilliant, original. Watch your step, but follow him. —Derek Pell

15 Serial Killers grabs you by the head and forces you to look hard at some of the most disturbing, graphic, violent, senseless acts of our time. It offers up these gruesomes in a deadpan, darkly comic way that, damn it, makes you laugh, which is perhaps the most terrifying thing of all. —Claire Tristram

About the Author:

Harold Jaffe is the author of eight fiction collections and three novels, including 15 Serial Killers (forthcoming from RDSP), False Positive, (2002), Sex for the Millennium (1999), Othello Blues (1996), Straight Razor (1995), Eros Anti-Eros (1990), Madonna and Other Spectacles (1988) and Beasts (1986). Jaffe's fiction has appeared in numerous journals and has been widely anthologized. His novels and stories have been translated into German, Japanese, Spanish, French, and Czech. Jaffe is editor-in-chief of Fiction International and Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at San Diego State.

About this edition

• Publisher: Raw Dog Screaming Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 097450310X
• ISBN 13: 9780974503103
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 180
• Illustrator: Lipman Joel