Read A Death in Belmont Online

Authors: Sebastian Junger

A Death in Belmont (22 page)

BOOK: A Death in Belmont
9.15Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Well?

Is that conceivably something you might do?

Further Reading

Like most works of journalism, this book relies heavily on the research of others. I would like to call attention to a few books that were particularly helpful to me. For an account of life at Parchman Farm, I consulted
Down on Parchman Farm
, by William Banks Taylor (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999), and
Worse than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice
, by David M. Oshinsky (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996). For a general account of racism and lynching in America, nothing beats Philip Dray's superb
At the Hands of Persons Unknown
(New York: Modern Library, 2002). An interesting counterpart to that is Don H. Doyle's
Faulkner's County: The Historical Roots of Yoknapatawpha
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001). Also helpful is
Faulkner's World
(Oxford: University Press of Mississippi, 1997), which shows life in Oxford, Mississippi, in the 1950s and 1960s through the lens of photographer Martin Dain.

For a more contemporary look at racism and the civil rights movement,
Reporting Civil Rights
(New York: Library of America,
2003) compiles press reports from 1963 to 1973.
We Charge Genocide
(New York: International Publishers, 1970), edited by William Patterson, is an important—though out-of-print—documentation of racial injustice. And,
Race, Crime and the Law
, by Randall Kennedy (New York: Vintage, 1998), offers a devastating critique of racial inequities in the legal system.

A lively account of the history of Central Square can be found in
Crossroads: Stories of Central Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1912–2000,
by Sarah Boyer (Cambridge: Cambridge Historical Commission, 2001). The book has great archival photographs of Cambridge during the past century. Other archival photographs of Chelsea, Massachusetts, can be found in Margaret Harriman Clarke's
Images of America: Chelsea
(Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 1998). For a history of Jewish emigration to America, I consulted
Jews, God and History,
by Max I. Dimont (New York: New American Library, 1962).

There are many excellent books on criminal investigation, but I relied most heavily on
Practical Homicide Investigation: Tactics, Procedures, and Forensic Techniques
, by Vernon J. Geberth, and
Forensic Pathology
, by Dominick J. Di Maio and Vincent J. M. Di Maio. (Both books are published by CRC Press in New York, in 1996 and 1989, respectively. I should mention that the crime-scene photographs in these books are so disturbing that I required months to get them out of my head.) A full account of the case of Larry Swartz, who murdered his parents in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1984, can be found in
Sudden Fury: A True Story of Adoption and Murder
, by Leslie Walker (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989).

The two classic books on Albert DeSalvo are
The Boston Strangler
, by Gerold Frank (New York: New American Library, 1996), and
Confessions of the Boston Strangler
, by George Rae (New York:
Pyramid Books, 1967). Two other well-known books on the topic are
The Boston Stranglers
, by Susan Kelly (New York: Birch Lane Press, 1995), and
A Rose for Mary: The Hunt for the Real Boston Strangler
, by Casey Sherman (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2003). Both Kelly and Sherman contend that DeSalvo was not the killer he claimed to be, and no serious study of the topic can be made without carefully considering what these two authors have to say.

Finally I consulted more law books than I care to remember or can bring myself to list; suffice it to say that any introductory textbook on criminal law will give one the basics. Beyond that, you're on your own.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost I would like to thank my wife, Daniela, for her endless and indispensable advice while I was writing this book. She is in many ways the wisest reader I know. I also thank many friends—particularly John Falk, Rob Leaver, Alan Huffman, Teun Voeten, and Scott Anderson—for reading and commenting on my work as it progressed. My mother, Ellen, and my father, Miguel, have also read and reread this work many times, for which I am deeply appreciative. On the professional end of things I would like to thank my agent, Stuart Krichevsky; his assistants, Shana Cohen and Elizabeth Coen; my editors, Starling Lawrence and Morgen Van Vorst; my copyeditors, Janet Byrne and Sue Llewellyn; my in-house publicists, Louise Brockett and Elizabeth Riley; and my personal publicist, Cathy Saypol, for their advice and great work in seeing this book to completion. I am also very indebted to Austin Merrill and Sady Cohen for their exhaustive research and fact-checking. A wonderful woman named Mary Dunn, who helped me in the early stages of my research, tragically passed away before the book was completed. She is greatly missed.

This book incorporates, in one form or another, the knowledge of many people who gave so generously of their time. I was given incredible legal advice—in one case, it virtually amounted to a private tutorial—by Judge Chris Muse, Judge Paul Chernoff, Judge Robert Bohn, David Meier (prosecutor), Karolyn Tontarski (medical examiner), Dr. Alison Fife (forensic psychiatrist), Randy Chapman (attorney), and Brownlow Speer (appellate lawyer). Steve Delaney devoted an enormous amount of time and effort, and I cannot thank him enough. In Mississippi I was greatly aided—not to mention fed, entertained, and sheltered—by Richard and Lisa Howorth and their wonderful family. Many thanks to them. Coach Smith appears as a character in this book, of course, but he is now also a good friend. His utter honesty about himself and the world he comes from was truly inspiring.

Finally I would like to recognize the numerous people who agreed to be interviewed for this book. I will not list them individually because their names appear in the text, but I would like to say that I do realize how painful some of those interviews must have been. This book is about a murder and the lives that were damaged in its wake, and there is no way to have a pleasant conversation about something like that. I am very, very appreciative that the people involved had the courage to speak with me.

BOOK: A Death in Belmont
9.15Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Wildest Dreams by Partridge, Norman
Inside the Worm by Robert Swindells
Falling In by Lydia Michaels
A World Elsewhere by Wayne Johnston
The Homecoming by Anne Marie Winston
Spy in the Bleachers by Gertrude Chandler Warner
Lady and the Wolf by Elizabeth Rose