Harold Schechter

Harold Schechter
Born June 28, 1948
Occupation True Crime Writer/Author, Professor of Literature at Queens College, CUNY.
Education BA, PhD
Alma mater City College of New York, State University of New York
Genre True crime, fiction
Subject Serial killers, popular culture
Spouse Kimiko Hahn
Website
haroldschechter.com

Literature portal

Harold Schechter is an American true crime writer who specializes in serial killers. He attended the State University of New York in Buffalo where his PhD director was Leslie Fiedler. He is a professor of American literature and popular culture at Queens College of the City University of New York. Schechter is married to poet Kimiko Hahn. He has two daughters from a previous marriage: the writer Lauren Oliver, and professor of philosophy Elizabeth Schechter. His newest book, The Mad Sculptor, (about a sensational triple murder at Beekman Place in New York City in 1937) was published in February 2014.[1]

Survey of Harold Schechter's Career

Schechter is an Associate Professor of English at Queens College, New York and specializes in American true crime, specifically serial murders of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Using primary sources such as newspaper clippings and court records, he supplies thorough documentation of every case he profiles, while still managing to create compelling narratives and fully fleshed-out characters. In addition to his work as a crime historian, Schechter is the author of an acclaimed series of detective novels based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe.[2]

In addition to his historical crime books and mystery fiction, Schechter has written extensively on American popular culture. In The Bosom Serpent: Folklore and Popular Art, he explores the relationship between contemporary commercial entertainment and the narrative archetypes of traditional folklore. Savage Pastimes: A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment places the current controversy over media violence in a broad historical context. Examining everything from Victorian murder ballads to the productions of the nineteenth-century Grand Guignol, the book makes the somewhat contrarian argument that today’s popular entertainment is actually less violent than the gruesome diversions of the supposedly halcyon past.[2][3]

Schechter’s essays have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and the International Herald Tribune. He is the editor of The Library of America Volume, True Crime: An American Anthology

Praise

Publishers Weekly has called Schechter a "serial killer expert", a "deft writer", praising his ability to recreate "from documentation the thoughts and perspectives of long-dead figures." PW called Schechter’s book The Devil’s Gentleman "a riveting tale of murder, seduction and tabloid journalism run rampant in New York not so different from today".[4]

Booklist called his book Depraved a "first-rate true crime and first-rate popular history." Writing in the New York Times reviewer James Polk praised Nevermore, the first in Schechter's Poe mystery series for its "entertaining premise...supported by rich period atmospherics."

True crime

The Mad Sculptor: The Maniac, the Model, and the Murder That Shook the Nation, the story of Roger Irwin's obsession with model Veronica Gedeon and his subsequent descent into madness. (Published in February 2014)

Mystery

Popular culture

Academic works

References

  1. ↑ Schechter, Harold (2014). The Mad Sculptor: The Maniac, the Model, and the Murder That Shook the Nation. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-544-11431-9.
  2. 1 2 Mahdi, Louise Carus; Foster, Steven; Little, Meredith (1 January 1987). Betwixt & Between: Patterns of Masculine and Feminine Initiation. Open Court Publishing. p. 67. ISBN 978-0-8126-9048-4.
  3. ↑ Gilbert, Nathaniel (2006). Democracide: America on the Road to Fascism and Bankruptcy. AuthorHouse. p. 153. ISBN 978-1-4259-5922-7.
  4. ↑ "Nonfiction Book Review: The Devil's Gentleman: Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Century". Publisher's Weekly.

External links

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