On an Interview with a Cannibal

Years ago, it was a Saturday night -- how pathetic is this? it was a Saturday night and I was alone. And I sat down with In Cold Blood. And I remember not only reading it from start to finish - I finished about 4:30 in the morning - and at that point I was so terrified that I remember not turning out the light. It had that much of an impact on me.

-- Presidential historian and author Richard Norton Smith

It is definitely "not for the faint of heart," as Publishers Weekly pointed out. A new book out in English translation, Interview with a Cannibal: The Secret Life of the Monster of Rotenburg [Amazon; not on B&N], delivers on the promise in the title. For those who are drawn to grisly true crime stories of the up-late-at-night and almost-wish-I-hadn't-read-it variety, you might, like me, read the book cover to cover in under 24 hours. And you might, like me, force yourself to skip some sections. It might even prompt you to sleep with the lights on.

German journalist Günter Stampf traveled to the high-security prison that now houses Armin Meiwes (Wikipedia) and interviewed him thirty times. Armed with the case files, Stampf explores and relays the sickening personality that produced the crime of the century in Germany and a criminal more disgusting than Ed Gein and more frightening than Hannibal Lecter. A postscript by criminal profiler Pat Brown incises through any sympathy one might be tempted to extend to Lecter Meiwes as she skewers him as a hopeless psychopath.

Meanwhile, I am reminded of a critic of true crime who called the genre "review-proof." Well, maybe, I now think. This particular title may not see many reviews, but those who begin the tale might find that the book is also immune from efforts to put it down unfinished. I can say no more without imposing on the reading experience.

Comments

[Karen]

ick, ick, ick not for me, thank you, not one second of my life wasted on such a monster