Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56981 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 312 pages

Synopsis
The Memoir of the World's Worst Murderer; "In my lifetime I have murdered 21 human beings, I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons and last but not least I have committed sodomy on more than 1000 male human beings. For all of these things I am not the least bit sorry...I hate the whole damn human race including myself." - Carl Panzram; Carl Panzram was born in 1891 on a Minnesota farm and died in 1930 on the gallows in a U.S. Penitentiary. Imprisoned for most of his life, Panzram prepared this full autobiography for his one friend in the world, a young prison guard named Henry Lesser. Now, this brutally forthright memoir is framed by a commentary on the historical and sociological framework for his words, using his uniquely detailed self-analysis to shed a great deal of light on the nature of crime and the current crisis of the new prison-industrial complex era. As Panzram reveals his keen insight into the arbitrary cruelty of his fellow human being, he graphically illustrates what happens when an unbreakable personality is unmercifully abused, and decides to strike back in vengeance.

Customer Reviews

Tragic.
Highly recommended.
I've been after this book for a few years and finally got around to reading it recently. If you want to read a book that will stay with you, rather than giving you a quick, vicarious thrill, this is the one.
It's horrific and deals mainly with how if you beat a dog enough it gets mean. Panzram isn't a very sympathetic character but after reading this I think it's a strong argument that your character is defined by your upbringing. His was brutish and violent and resulted in him becoming a violent brute as a man. His letters show him to be fairly intelligent and not the maniac that his actions mark him as. Once he was treated with a certain respect by the guard assigned to him, he flowered (to a small extent) reading widely and speaking with some intelligence about his life and motivations.
This isn't chock full of gory murders- indeed many are only covered in passing. What it does have are some perceptive insights into what made Panzram the monster he became. It's hard not to become angry about the potential that Panzram had, potential that was beaten out of him at home and in jail. He was a monster, of that there is no doubt, but any humanity that he ever had was taken from him as a child.

A truly unique book
I first came across Carl Panzram through the film Killer: A Journal of Murder starring James Woods. Impressed with that I finally found a copy of the book, and I am immensely impressed. I read this in two days over Christmas (including a three hour late night stint) and it ranks as one of the most gripping, interesting and eye-opening books I have ever read.

Thomas E. Gaddis and James O. Long have framed Panzram's own words in a social and historical context which allows the reader understand not only the crime wave that swept America in the 1920s, but most importantly how a man like Panzram could be created. It is extensively researched, and if penology is your area of interest then there is plenty of recommended additional reading to investigate.

Panzram's own words create a plain and brutally honest account of his own rage against the authorities he claimed created him. He doesn't mince his words. The matter-of-fact manner in which he describes some of his heinous crimes may be concerning for some people, but I feel his manuscript shows that there are different people out there driven by different motives. What this text does not do is glorify crime in any way. If anything Panzram comes across as an intelligent and articulate individual; sometimes it is as if only he can see what mess has been created.

This text shows how not to punish those who do wrong, but it also shows how pitifully far we've progressed since Panzram's time. At the risk of sounding a tad clichéd, I feel this is a book we should all read at some point in our lives. A great read and a truly human story.

Panzram: A Journal of Murder
If you have any interest in serial killers and their motives this is a must - a unique and fascinating autobiography. There's no wonder it took 40 years to get published. Not for the feint hearted!