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37 reviews for:
Kitty Genovese: A True Account of a Public Murder and Its Private Consequences
Catherine Pelonero
3.68 AVERAGE
37 reviews for:
Kitty Genovese: A True Account of a Public Murder and Its Private Consequences
Catherine Pelonero
3.68 AVERAGE
It's a good thing this book is such an easy read because the subject is definitely not easy to take. Besides constantly thinking (and sometimes even saying out loud) "WHat was wrong with these people?", I had to constantly re-evaluate whether things are different here and now. I believe we'd all like to think that this couldn't happen now where I live, but hopefully I will never need to find out.
Very well researched and presented-but not for the faint of heart.
I also appreciated the thoroughness with which she presented the victim, Kitty as a person
Very well researched and presented-but not for the faint of heart.
I also appreciated the thoroughness with which she presented the victim, Kitty as a person
It was an interesting read, over it was very repetitive. I did not realize o
All o the other crimes this man had also committed and yet he was "normal".
All o the other crimes this man had also committed and yet he was "normal".
So meticulously researched, Catherine Pelonero recreates that early morning of March 13, 1964 in hauntingly vivid detail. I found myself in tears not only for the loss of such a beautiful, well loved, ebullient young woman, but for the seeming apathy of those 38 people who witnessed or heard such a brutal crime & did nothing.
Book Rating: 5 out of 10.
A detailed account of the case. I felt there was way too much insignificant detail on stuff that wasn't essential to the overall book. That cynically, I felt, was there to bulk up the page count. Some may appreciate the minute detail; I just thought it was a waste of time.
A detailed account of the case. I felt there was way too much insignificant detail on stuff that wasn't essential to the overall book. That cynically, I felt, was there to bulk up the page count. Some may appreciate the minute detail; I just thought it was a waste of time.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
You’ve probably heard the story of the woman who was murdered on a New York street, screaming for help, while numerous witnesses did nothing, leading to discussion of ‘the Bystander Effect’. You might have heard it was exaggerated or even that it was an urban legend. However, the woman was Kitty Genovese and the story is even worse than it sounds.
Possible spoilers ahead!
The first section of this book is really compelling: it explains exactly what took place on March 13, 1964. Kitty was arriving home when a man who had followed her from the bar where she worked stabbed her on the street, around the corner from her apartment. She screamed for help – she was heard shouting that she’d ‘been stabbed’ and was ‘dying’. This was a quiet neighbourhood in Queens, not one where people expected to hear screaming and shouting at 2.30am and neighbours reacted. Some looked out and shouted: ‘Shut the fuck up!’ ‘Leave that girl alone!’ The attacker ran away. But the attack wasn’t over. Kitty tried to get home. She made it not to the entrance of her apartment, but to that of a friend. She went in, maybe just to get off the street, and called up the stairs to her friend. Instead of helping he called another friend and got other neighbours to come down to check if it was really Kitty. But it was all too late because by the time anyone came to Kitty’s aid, the killer had returned to finish the job.
At the time it was reported that there were 38 witnesses (the police reports back this up) and none of them helped. This is the biggest point of contention in this case. Of course, it sounds incredible, but we have to understand that 38 means the total number of people who saw or heard something – and that could’ve been a shout, or a man standing too close to a woman. No one saw the whole thing from start to finish, and not everyone could have realised that it was serious enough to call the police (if I called the police every time I heard shouts, I’d be the one getting arrested). Also, it was 1964; for some people, summoning help may have meant going down to the police call box in the street where potential danger lay – and witnesses included 14-year-olds and pensioners. And most importantly – at least two claim to have tried to call, or called and not been given priority. Today, over 50 years later there are claims that reports were wildly exaggerated. Based on what I read in this book (in particular the author’s afterword) and just common sense (time changes everything, even memories) I don’t agree. I do think it was unrealistic to expect all 38 people to react, but there were some key people whose actions were shameful. You’ll know who if you read.
There’s more to the book: we get background on the killer, information on the trial and what happened after – there are plenty of twists and turns, the tragedy of those Kitty left behind – her partner Mary-Ann, who to everyone else was only her roommate; and her brother who committed himself to helping everyone leading him to Vietnam.
The book is well- written and very well-researched. As I said, the first part was compelling. What happened? Who was Kitty? What’s the truth behind ‘no one helped’? However, what brought my rating down was that the story got very repetitive and kept coming back to that last question. Sadly, the case stopped being about a young woman who was tragically murdered outside her own home and became about a community who got tired of being bad-mouthed.
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
I took psychology courses in high school and college in the early to late 1990s. The name Kitty Genovese was a footnote in chapters about the "bystander effect." I only knew that a young women was murdered on the streets of a quiet 1960s neighborhood and that people pretty much watched her die. At the time, it was stated that no one called the police and it was inferred from my readings that she died completely alone. Upsetting.
The truth is not much better, though. I had no idea how horrific her final ordeal was, how methodical Moseley was in coming back to finish the job. I also understand that her neighbor and friend didn't want the police hassling him because he was gay and that was a criminal offense at the time period, but NOT calling the police and lying about whether or not he heard anything actually made him look worse, in the end.
It's disturbing and sad that over thirty people saw or heard something and there are contemporary police reports that state various pathetic excuses. I know you're scared, but if you're on the sixth floor of a building and the killer is in the street and can't see you, he doesn't know you called the cops. Weak sauce. If just one more person had made a call, especially those who claimed that they saw him beating her or stabbing her, or HEARD her say she'd been stabbed or yelling for help, she might have survived. Moseley's repeated stabbings were deep enough to cause harm, but not immediate death; she suffocated slowly and horribly, and might have hastened her death by trying to get home. Considering the apathy of her neighbors, I'm sure if Moseley had come back for her and tried to assault her in the street again, people probably STILL would not have called the police.
We're really no different now. A few years ago, there was surveillance photo of a person bleeding out on a street in New York and people WALKED OVER HIM as he died. People always think that someone else is going to do something. But seriously, who cares if three other people called before you? Call anyway.
This was a very thoroughly researched book and Ms. Pelonero tells a very clear narrative. I tore through this book in one day.
The truth is not much better, though. I had no idea how horrific her final ordeal was, how methodical Moseley was in coming back to finish the job. I also understand that her neighbor and friend didn't want the police hassling him because he was gay and that was a criminal offense at the time period, but NOT calling the police and lying about whether or not he heard anything actually made him look worse, in the end.
It's disturbing and sad that over thirty people saw or heard something and there are contemporary police reports that state various pathetic excuses. I know you're scared, but if you're on the sixth floor of a building and the killer is in the street and can't see you, he doesn't know you called the cops. Weak sauce. If just one more person had made a call, especially those who claimed that they saw him beating her or stabbing her, or HEARD her say she'd been stabbed or yelling for help, she might have survived. Moseley's repeated stabbings were deep enough to cause harm, but not immediate death; she suffocated slowly and horribly, and might have hastened her death by trying to get home. Considering the apathy of her neighbors, I'm sure if Moseley had come back for her and tried to assault her in the street again, people probably STILL would not have called the police.
We're really no different now. A few years ago, there was surveillance photo of a person bleeding out on a street in New York and people WALKED OVER HIM as he died. People always think that someone else is going to do something. But seriously, who cares if three other people called before you? Call anyway.
This was a very thoroughly researched book and Ms. Pelonero tells a very clear narrative. I tore through this book in one day.
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
It felt like it took me a long time to read this book, not because it is slow, but rather because it's so intense. The action of the story happens very early, the rest of the book is the reflection on the aftermath of the reporting and on Walter Moseley. The book is extremely readable and I will be reflecting on this book for a long time.