Kitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime that Changed America Author: Kevin Cook | Language: English | ISBN:
0393239284 | Format: EPUB
Kitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime that Changed America Description
At last, the true story of a crime that shocked the world.
New York City, 1964. A young woman is stabbed to death on her front stoop—a murder the New York Times called “a frozen moment of dramatic, disturbing social change.” The victim, Catherine “Kitty” Genovese, became an urban martyr, butchered by a sociopathic killer in plain sight of thirty-eight neighbors who “didn’t want to get involved.” Her sensational case provoked an anxious outcry and launched a sociological theory known as the “Bystander Effect.”
That’s the narrative told by the Times, movies, TV programs, and countless psychology textbooks. But as award-winning author Kevin Cook reveals, the Genovese story is just that, a story. The truth is far more compelling—and so is the victim.
Now, on the fiftieth anniversary of her murder, Cook presents the real Kitty Genovese. She was a vibrant young woman—unbeknownst to most, a lesbian—a bartender working (and dancing) her way through the colorful, fast-changing New York of the ’60s, a cultural kaleidoscope marred by the Kennedy assassination, the Cold War, and race riots. Downtown, Greenwich Village teemed with beatniks, folkies, and so-called misfits like Kitty and her lover. Kitty Genovese evokes the Village’s gay and lesbian underground with deep feeling and colorful detail.
Cook also reconstructs the crime itself, tracing the movements of Genovese’s killer, Winston Moseley, whose disturbing trial testimony made him a terrifying figure to police and citizens alike, especially after his escape from Attica State Prison.
Drawing on a trove of long-lost documents, plus new interviews with her lover and other key figures, Cook explores the enduring legacy of the case. His heartbreaking account of what really happened on the night Genovese died is the most accurate and chilling to date.
16 pages of photographs
- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (March 3, 2014)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0393239284
- ISBN-13: 978-0393239287
- Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Winston Churchill is alleged to have remarked "A lie gets half way around the world before the truth gets its pants on". I thought of that saying when it came down to the infamous Kitty Genovese murder of March 13, 1964. The name Kitty Genovese brings up images of neighbors hearing her screams while they pulled up a chair to their windows and watched the murder unfold as if they were watching a TV show. The New York Times infamously proclaimed that 38 of her neighbors saw her being murdered and ignored her cries for help. Nothing could be further from the truth. It turns out that there is a difference between an "eyewitness" (of which there were definitely only three) and “earwitness” who heard something but could not figure out what it was. Many thought it was a drunken spat (there was a bar on Austin Street where the first attack took place) and frankly many of the people who heard something were elderly people who were jolted out of a deep slumber at around 3:30 AM and could not hear the whole thinking correctly as it was a cold night with the windows shut tight. The author does very good research on Kitty Genovese’s short life and of the gay scene of early 1960’s New York City (Kitty was a lesbian and lived with her lover Mary Ann in the apartment in Kew Gardens near where the murder took place) as well as the NYC of the 1964 World’s Fair, and he delves into the character of the sociopath Winston Moseley, a middle class black man with a wife who worked as a nurse, two children, his own home, 5 dogs, a good job and a car - a man though with an inner demon that was dominated by necrophilia. That night Moseley set out to stalk murder and rape a woman and he did just that. It is interesting to contemplate that if the Times did not bring up the false story of 38 witnesses, Kitty Genovese would have been long forgotten.
The book is short, well written and to the point – which I like.
By Travis
Author Kevin Cook has a way with words that makes all his books thoroughly enjoyable reading. Here he turns his journalist's lens on the Kitty Genovese story but doesn't just report it - he thoroughly illuminates it with fresh research and acute observation, and writes about it in such a way that I just couldn't put the book down...I read it straight through on an international flight. I've already passed it along to a friend. You'll be riveted.
By Gregory Heisler
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