Disturbing Books

[shawnalanne]

jensational said:

stargirl Joyce Carol Oates has some good books but I've read a really disturbing one by her too---She apparently can get a little freaky. The book I read involved a girl who's parents died so she went off into an orphanage or something and later joined some sort of satanic gang and it was her job to lure girls into this van where they were then taken away to some farm and raped repeatedly. She ended up warning two girls when she developed a conscience and then the gang threw her in the basement where they tortured her and starved her. It was way weird.

Slightly off topic, but I was born in '73 and I remember vividly those sort of stories being everywhere. ((I am still wary of big white vans.)

Part of it the issue, I think, was that Christian's felt under attack from the cultural movement and shifts of the 60s and 70s so they created all of these bogie's around Satan and rape, etc., as a way to keep people, particularly women, in line.

The interesting thing is that this gave disaffected youth with evangelical parents a concrete way to rebel. Many imitated the stories/urban legends of the time. The most innocent being the poser ritual of Satanism. It got ugly when they took it to the extreme. You saw a bunch of this in the 80s as well, look at some Heavy Metal bands, like KISS, and their target audience.

Anyhow, it would be interesting to gather literary and genre stories of that sort together and study them.

[dnt]

I remember when the true crime novel Say You Love Satan came out in 1987. Every headbanger in my school was reading it, including kids who probably hadn't picked up a book since slogging through The Outsiders in middle school. It was about a murder that took place on Long Island in the mid-eighties; in reality, it was a drug slaying, in which one kid who'd stolen drugs was stabbed by the kid he'd robbed and a couple of other kids were present. Of course, all of them were high. The only notable things about the incident were that the murderer, Ricky Kasso, was a self-declared Satanist, and in the weeks after the murder, he brought numerous kids to view the body before someone finally called the cops. The movie "River's Edge" was based on that murder.

The NY press made a huge deal out of the murder, making it sound like a Satanic sacrifice rather than a drug murder. I found it troubling when I read the book because I felt very sympathetic toward Ricky Kasso. It was the drugs! He just needed someone to love him! Kasso committed suicide in his cell and his best friend (and alleged accessory to the crime) Jimmy Troiano was acquitted, but Troiano spent many years in jail for other crimes and I wonder how many of the girls who read that book back in 1987 found their own Jimmy Troianos: bad boys that just needed someone to take care of them.

[Mutagen]

Back when I first read it (age 13 or 14, perhaps), the ending of A Ring of Endless Light freaked the shit out of me. For that matter, so did the ending of A Wrinkle In Time, by the same author.

[ernestine]

I just finished reading the most disturbing book of my life. Definitely not recommended for the faint of heart. It left me feeling stained and I had nightmares last night. It's called the Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum.

It's about a girl who suffers... unspeakable abuse at the hands of her aunt and some neighbor children. The story is really about how everyone knows it's going on, but no one cares enough to help her. It's fiction, though based loosely on a true story.

I wish I'd never opened this book...

[Deleted]

At least you have a place to let off steam about it....
I'll make sure to steer clear, if I ever see a copy...it sounds horribly depressing and really scary....

[hamhock]

I read that book by Jack Ketchum a month or 2 ago. Seriously nauseating. I couldn't stop thinking about it for a few days and I wished I hadn't read it.

[Deleted]

mutagen said:

Back when I first read it (age 13 or 14, perhaps), the ending of A Ring of Endless Light freaked the shit out of me. For that matter, so did the ending of A Wrinkle In Time, by the same author.

Mutagen -- What am I forgetting about the ending of A Wrinkle in Time? Didn't they all get safely home again? (I never read A Ring of Endless Light.)

[kanding]

ernestine, after reading how traumatized you were by Girl Next Door, I just had to go to amazon.com to read a description.

You weren't kidding. That is a book to stay away from. The reviewers' contributions all echoed your post. I think I'll pass and go read Pat the Bunny or something.

[Deleted]

Good lord! Girl Next Door was based on a real case! Ugh. Why do I read these things at work? The first review on Amazon mentions the people's names.

[hobocamp]

Right now I'm reading actor Klaus Kinski's autobiography, All I Need is Love. It's not disturbing in the Girl Next Door sort of way, but at least every other page, there's a really gross sex scene. It seems all he did was screw anything that walked. The worst so far is him describing sex with an underage virgin and tearing at her hymen with his teeth. Although how that is possible is beyond me. I've heard he also goes on at great length about how he wants to get in the pants of his daughter, Nastassja, but I haven't gotten there yet. It's quite fascinating, but my boyfriend has banned me from reading it in bed, because I can't help but read him the newest gross sex scene, and it's kind of hurting our sex life.