You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
ajhild 's review for:
John Wayne Gacy: Defending a Monster
by Sam L. Amirante
Written by one of Gacy’s defense lawyers (who also happened to be one of the first two people to whom Gacy confessed his horrific crimes), John Wayne Gacy: Defending a Monster serves as an adequate primer to the Gacy case but falls short as a story in most every other respect.
Sam Amironte paints a vivid picture of his former client’s crimes and personality. However, Amironte struggles to create an engaging flow to his story, especially in the first half of the book, which lurches back and forth between Sam’s experience taking on Gacy as a client and long flashbacks to Gacy’s disturbing crimes and previous life.
The real problem with these different narratives isn’t the pacing, however. Rather, it is the distractingly different styles in which these parts are written. When discussing his own life or Gacy’s background, Sam generally sticks to an objective tone that feels both personally authentic and historically credible. However, in the portions discussing Gacy’s murders, especially a long section near the beginning detailing his final murder, the writing style switches to what I can only describe as a cheap and sleazy paperback thriller, in which the author describes not only the facts as they have come to light, but provides all sorts of outrageously colorful details including (but not limited to) the inner thoughts of a young man as he slowly dies. Not only does this style raise major questions about the credibility of the details in this section of the book, but it also feels gross and exploitative to invent the thoughts of a deceased young teenager (or even Gacy himself, for that matter).
Thankfully, the book becomes far tighter and more interesting in the latter half, which mostly deals with the arrest and trial of Gacy. Despite some unnecessary repetitions and overlong quotes from the trial, this section does an adequate job of laying out the case for both the defense and prosecution of Gacy. Amironte must be commended for his impartial presentation of the trial (though he makes it clear that he still believes in his defense of Gacy). In fact, I found the prosecution’s argument more convincing than the defense’s, even coming through the words of Amironte.
Overall, for people with little knowledge of the Gacy case (and a strong stomach for handling all of the sordid, gross details), this book is a worthwhile introduction to that monster of a man and his infamous trial.
Sam Amironte paints a vivid picture of his former client’s crimes and personality. However, Amironte struggles to create an engaging flow to his story, especially in the first half of the book, which lurches back and forth between Sam’s experience taking on Gacy as a client and long flashbacks to Gacy’s disturbing crimes and previous life.
The real problem with these different narratives isn’t the pacing, however. Rather, it is the distractingly different styles in which these parts are written. When discussing his own life or Gacy’s background, Sam generally sticks to an objective tone that feels both personally authentic and historically credible. However, in the portions discussing Gacy’s murders, especially a long section near the beginning detailing his final murder, the writing style switches to what I can only describe as a cheap and sleazy paperback thriller, in which the author describes not only the facts as they have come to light, but provides all sorts of outrageously colorful details including (but not limited to) the inner thoughts of a young man as he slowly dies. Not only does this style raise major questions about the credibility of the details in this section of the book, but it also feels gross and exploitative to invent the thoughts of a deceased young teenager (or even Gacy himself, for that matter).
Thankfully, the book becomes far tighter and more interesting in the latter half, which mostly deals with the arrest and trial of Gacy. Despite some unnecessary repetitions and overlong quotes from the trial, this section does an adequate job of laying out the case for both the defense and prosecution of Gacy. Amironte must be commended for his impartial presentation of the trial (though he makes it clear that he still believes in his defense of Gacy). In fact, I found the prosecution’s argument more convincing than the defense’s, even coming through the words of Amironte.
Overall, for people with little knowledge of the Gacy case (and a strong stomach for handling all of the sordid, gross details), this book is a worthwhile introduction to that monster of a man and his infamous trial.