True Crime ‘inspired’ by Literature
Every year in late September, countries around the world celebrate Banned Books Week. Libraries prominently display titles that — for one reason or another — have been banned in certain parts of the world. These titles can include books like Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Beloved by Toni Morrison, and even Twilight by Stephanie Myer. Books can be banned for a variety of reasons; bad language, sexual content, drug use, gang activity, etcetera. Before books are banned, they are challenged, which is an “attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group,” while a ban is complete removal of those materials (American Library Association).
Anne Perry is an editor at Hodder publishers in London, and believes that “any subject can be written about,” she does, however, caution writers to take care to “research and write to the absolute best of his or her ability, and incumbent upon the publisher to publish responsibly,” (2016). To thousands of writers and publishers, the practice of banning books is ludicrous because “writing is art, and what is the point of art if it doesn’t force society to question itself?” (Perry 2016).
One of the top reasons a book is banned or challenged is its use of violence in the text. According to a poll done by the American Library Association (ALA), about 619 books have been banned or challenged for violence from the years 2000–2009. In 2014, the ALA did another poll which showed that 14% of books are challenged because of violence. Some of the most challenged and banned books in the world have been accused of inspiring violence in young people. The following are three cases of violence that were allegedly “inspired” by novels.
On December 8th, 1980, John Lennon was shot on his way home from a recording session with his wife. He died the next day after losing 80% of his blood. His murderer, Mark David Chapman, was reading Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger before and after he killed Lennon. Chapman had an unhealthy obsession with Holden Caulfield, the main character of Catcher, having first read the novel at age sixteen, the same age of said protagonist. Throughout the novel, Holden remarks about how he hates “phonies” and anyone who pretends to be someone they are not, Chapman has stated, that he believes that a “phony” is “anyone more successful than himself,” (Carpenter 1993). Chapman became obsessed with the novel, going so far as to attempt to change his name to Holden Caulfield.
Before the murder, Chapman considered himself a fan of Lennon but that changed when he read a book about Lennon’s wealthy lifestyle. He believed it to be a betrayal of how Lennon portrayed himself and his beliefs. Chapman was arrested only a few minutes after the shooting and was sentenced to 20-years-to-life in prison for second-degree murder. In 1992, he consented to an interview with Larry King, where he revealed that he would “look at the picture [of Lennon] and say ‘You phony, I’m going to get you.’ And then pray for the demons to enter my body, to give me the strength to pull that gun out…” (Ebert 110). Chapman fancied himself Caulfield and thought that he would officially turn into the sixteen-year-old boy after shooting Lennon. Another copy of Catcher was found in Chapman’s hotel room. He had written on the back of the front cover, “This is my statement, sighed, Holden Caulfield.” Obviously, the character in the novel had a profound effect on Chapman and might have even been the push he needed to go through with the crime. Though Chapman was the most famous man to carry out murder after reading Catcher in the Rye, he was not the only person who has been influenced by the young adult novel.
On March 30th, 1981, John Hinkey Jr. attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. He was found with a copy of the same novel in his possession. Robert Bardo also carried out a heinous murder of young actress Rebecca Schaeffer in 1989, “indicated that he threw a red-covered paperback book entitled ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ in the alley while he was running,” (Dawsey and Feldman 1989). J.D. Salinger, the author of the novel, never made a public comment about any of the murders or how they relate to his book; passing away in 2010 at the age of 91. Catcher in the Rye remains in the top ten most challenged books of all time, one library citing the reasons of the ban as “excess vulgar language, sexual scenes, things concerning moral issues, excessive violence and anything dealing with the occult,” (Time Staff 2008). But would the ban really stop a murderer from murdering? Chapman had read Catcher when he was younger and continued to hold onto the book as he grew up. But even without the novel, he might still have listened to John Lennon and perhaps chosen to commit the act regardless. Millions of people around the world read Catcher in the Rye. Many children relate to Holden’s feelings of isolation and fear, while some find him just a whiny teenager (I fall into the former category), but to say this book was the catalyst for the murder of Lennon negates all the other issues with people like Chapman and Hinkey.
Another novel that has been under fire for its supposed influence in murder is Rage by Stephen King. Published in 1977 under King’s pseudonym Richard Bachman, Rage is centered on a young high school boy named Charlie Decker who kills his algebra teacher and holds a classroom of student’s hostage and refuses to negotiate with the police or any school officials. In the end, Charlie is captured and found not guilty by reason of insanity, and the hostages find that they relate to him in some way of feeling like outsiders.
In San Gabriel, California on April 26th, 1988 — more than 10 years after Rage was published — Jeffery Lyne Cox entered his classroom and held around 60 people hostage. A friend of Cox mentioned to The Press-Courier newspaper the next day that he had “got the idea from the hijacking of the Kuwaiti airliner and from Stephen King’s book Rage,” (Conlon 1). Jeffery Lyne Cox had prior psychological issues, having had a two-week stay in the psychiatric ward of the USC Medical Center in Los Angeles County. It was here where he had apparently discovered Rage apparently “devouring a worn paperback” (Katz 1990) version of the novel. Thankfully, no one was killed in Cox’s attempted spree. In similar situations, the classrooms were not so lucky. Scott Pennington had written an essay on the King novel and was apparently angry that he had received a C grade from his teacher. He walked into his English class, shot his teacher dead, and later killed the school custodian. He apparently had quoted the novel several times and taunted the students of the classroom, asking them if “Cat got your tongues?” (Buckley 1993) and if people thought he was crazy. He released the class around 20 minutes later, surrendering to police and was tried and found guilty as an adult of two counts of murder. Pennington had been a good student but was bullied for reading so much and having a stutter.
The final push that drew Stephen King to remove the book from libraries and book stores was when Michael Carneal opened fire in his school killing three and injuring five more in a prayer group in Paducah, Kentucky. There is little information linking this shooting to the novel, except for a copy of the book found in the killer’s locker. It was this final incident that led King to discontinue the publication of the book and remove it from his collection of The Bachman Books. According to King, he did not consider Rage “great literature,” and also believed that the book could be a “possible accelerant affecting people whose troubled backgrounds and psychological problems have already driven them to the brink,” (Adwar 2014). Though King’s website still features a page on the novel, it is noted under the synopsis that “no future printings will be made of this novel at Stephen’s request due to the sensitive nature of the content.” King’s novel is sought after by thousands of people who want to get their hands on a copy, causing those who have one to charge thousands of dollars online for it. But people do not want the book because it might be the encouraging push for them to commit a crime, they want to read it to perhaps understand why people do see this novel in a certain light.
The last novel examined which has received lots of controversies and been banned all over the world is American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis. The novel follows Patrick Bateman, a young banker who narrates his everyday life, which sometimes includes the brutal murders, rapes, and torture of prostitutes and coworkers. In the end, the reader and the protagonist are left wondering if Patrick really did commit the crimes he has walked us through, or if he has merely been fantasizing to a point of possible insanity. The book is very graphic in describing Bateman’s crimes and has been banned from schools as well as bookshops all over the world to this day. The controversy started early in editing when Simon & Schuster “pulled the plug on the book, citing aesthetic differences over what critics had termed its violence and women-hating content,” (Benatar 1990). Not two days later, Vintage Books picked up the novel and decided to publish it themselves.
Still, Ellis received hate from women’s groups and other publishers all over America. Amanda Urban — Ellis’ agent — fought for the author, stating that the book “has been wildly misrepresented by dint of these excerpts that are being printed and read,” (Venant 1990). The book was finally published in the Spring of 1991. On April 4th, 2012, Brian Douglas White posted pictures of rooms splattered with blood on his Facebook page along with status’ quoting his favorite book; American Psycho. He writes “’I like to dissect girls,’” (Moran and Stebner 2012), a line from the novel before he used an ax to kill his ex-girlfriend's mother and her new boyfriend while she was forced to watch. White then shot himself before the police could reach him.
Serial Killer Paul Bernardo also had a copy of American Psycho at his house which he had apparently “read as his bible,” (Cairns and Burnside 1995) while committing four murders and more than a dozen rapes with his wife. When asked about possibly censoring his novel, Ellis says that “it’s a weird thing to get involved in when talking about censorship and censoring yourself as a writer because you’re afraid to offend an audience,” he continues to say “if you’re going to see what’s going to upset people and what’s not…you might as well be in advertising.”
Very few elements connect these books or authors. All three novels are written in the first person, giving the reader full access to the protagonists’ (or antagonists’) thoughts. Whether or not you are a young man just kicked out of school, a bullied kid, or a rich banker, most people can find some sort of similarity to a character when they are the ones telling the story. First-person is also very bias, leaving other characters’ thoughts out of the text, thereby excluding their reasoning or concern for the main character.
All three of the main characters in these books feel alone and as if no one feels as they feel, which can be attractive to a reader who longs for a connection. Both Catcher in the Rye and American Psycho are taught in schools today, making them accessible to millions of young people who are going through their own issues with self-esteem and loneliness. But these novels are nothing more than scapegoats for people who want answers for senseless acts of violence in their communities.
Readers are gifted with the ability to interpret pieces of writing however they want to, as is someone who looks at an abstract painting. Mark David Chapman’s obsession with Holden Caulfield did nothing but constrict him to a cell for the rest of his life, while millions of other Catcher in the Rye readers (including this author) have read the book, pondered its meaning, and moved on without committing any felonies. However, to be cautious, some authors have decided to take their books off the shelf, or move forward as writers with a bit more thought into their words. Stephen King took his novel Rage off the shelves because “in my judgment, it might be hurting people and that is the responsible thing to do,” (Adwar 2014). Similarly, author of the controversial A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess, has stated that “I begin to accept that as a novelist, I belong to the ranks of the menacing,” (Doyle 2003) when his novel was cited as an influence in the death of a two-year-old boy. Leone Ross, author of Orange Laughter believes that “without incite to riot or violence,” that people should be able to just write “what they like,” (Ross 2016) no matter the topic.
So do we tell writers to stop writing certain topics? Writing is an extension of speech, and regulating speech is illegal in many countries. Readers cannot dictate what is to be written because “if we start a process in which we say ‘you must publish this and you must publish that’ then who decides?” (Ross 2016). According to the ALA, if people who petitioned to ban books got to decide, 1,811 books would be wiped from the shelves of schools all over America because someone found something controversial. This includes classic works of literature like To Kill a Mockingbird, Huck Finn, Beloved, and Of Mice and Men. Why should so many suffer the consequences and not learn the valuable lessons taught in these books because a tiny fraction decided to scapegoat the books they read?
Restricting content is not the answer to preventing violence.
Web sources:
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“Number of Challenges by Reasons, Initiator, & Institution, 2000–09.” Banned & Challenged Books. American Library Association, 10 Feb. 2016. Web. 16 Dec. 2016.
Ebert, John David. Dead Celebrities, Living Icons: Tragedy and Fame in the Age of the Multimedia Superstar. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010. Print.
Ross, Leone. Business of Writing Interview. 20th October 2016.
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Marjorie Heins’ Sex, Sin and Blasphemy: A Guide to America’s Censorship Wars New Press, 1993, pp. 3–4.