From: Amok Books Publisher: Amok Books Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Amok Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 312 Publication Date: August 31, 2002
Quite a Read Written in 1928, and first published in 1970, the autobiography of Carl Panzram by himself is quite a read. In this book, you will have the whole Panzram text (including many letters from him, later in the book), but you will also have a lot of text by the authors, who give you a context, explanations that Panzram doesn't provide, and overall, clarifications on the whole thing, which are most welcome. Just know that perhaps over a half of this book is not written by Panzram himself.
Carla Panzram spent most of his life in institutions, reform schools or prisons, and he developed a philosophy of hate that would justify, to him, a life devoted to robbing, raping, killing, burning, and destroying everyone and everything. His ideal plan was to kill the whole human race, no less.
The book is undoubtedly an important item from a historical perspective, and sociological and psychological ones, but make sure not to easily fall into recycling this text for this or that ideology. Panzram clearly excuses himself, albeit in a vague and incoherent way, all of he does, because he has been hurt himself. He says it explicitly when he explains that he wants to take revenge on everyone, for things done to him, and it doesn't matter if those he takes revenge on never did anything to him; it was enough that they were the same kind of person who mistreated him.
From a literary perspective, Panzram wrote in a prose style that Hemingway would give world-wide fame. The very first Panzram words in this book are quite excellent.
If you expect extremely gruesome details of murders and rapes, you won't have them. Panzram made no bones about those things, and so, in a way, you get the feeling he doesn't care much about it, not enough to dwell on it a lot, which is what another serial killer would do. And this is exactly the thing that makes Panzram an unlikely candidate to be a "serial killer", even though he did kill 21 people, which is more than many famous serial killers. Panzram doesn't act out of psychopathy and antisocial feelings in the same manner as a regular killer does. The line is fine, and perhaps it isn't there at all.
Another thing you will find in this volume is an excellent inside account of American institutions in the early 20th century. That is priceless, and few actually know the sort of torture used in those establishments back then. Remember that electo-torture scene in "Lethal Weapon"? With the sponge and Mel Gibson? Well that thing was used on Panzram, and known as the "humming bird".
The book has a tendency to say that society produced Panzram through the way he was mistreated, but don't buy that too easily. Indeed, the fact is that everyone in the establishments Panzram was in was treated the same, and Panzram was the only one to develop a philosophy of hate and act on it the way he did. It's no excuse. Panzram truly is Milton's Satan when he devotes his sorry life to causing as much damage and harm as he can, until self-destruction.
"Panzram" suffers from some typographical errors. For instance, and for unknown reasons, "he" often becomes "be" in the text. You'll easily correct the mistake, if you notice it at all, but it's there, and it's more frequent than you'd think. While Panzram's spelling was edited by the authors, they sometimes leave out a lot of mistakes, for unknown reasons once again. Panzram will write "tho" and "thru" and "its" instead of "it's" in some texts, and in others he will have a perfect spelling.
This book should not be thought as a liberal's wet dream when it comes to criminality. Panzram was very much his own man throughout his life, making his own decisions, and explaining them himself with extreme clarity. He could have chosen a different path, many times over. He stuck to his plan of hate, and got what he had coming to him. Indeed, he has been out of prison a lot, through escapes, and earlier in his life legally, and he never once tried to lead an honest life. Yes, life is unfair, but if you can't accept it, you'll never make it. Panzram is the typical case of the person who truly thinks the world owes them. No man can live a good life with that philosophy. No matter how bad the world treats you, it will never owe you jack, and by "the world", I don't mean "people", I mean life in general.
Like an apologia for a sociopath Panzram's words are chilling and bare, but the failure comes in the book that Gaddis and Long have interspersed around them. They seek to use Panzram's case as an illustration of the failure of the barbaric penal system of the first decades of the 20th century and marvel at how Panzram was almost rehabilitated under a permissive prison regime in Oregon. But they fail by not paying attention to Panzram's own words.
Indeed, Panzram's story is not some generalizable failure of the penal system -- how many other boys were in the same prison in Red Wing and didn't turn into sociopathic killers? According to Panzram's own words, he was the worst one even at his arrival in Red Wing.
In his memoir, Panzram details with glee murders he committed in various parts of the world when there was no long arm of the law to capture him; at that point, he could have lived as a free man in most of the world, even the United States. Panzram lays out plans he had for weapons of mass destruction in the manner of Timothy McVeigh and for bioterrorism at a time when such those words had not needed to be coined. The failure of the penal system is not that Panzram remained a criminal, but that of people who didn't kill him when they had justification.
If you read this book, focus on Panzram's words and not on the apologetic muckraking for prison reform that surround them.
Great Start, But Missing Information & More... Jim Long and Tom Gaddis did a great job on the book. But after reading Henry Lesser's "Recollections of Carl Panzram", I felt that Henry Lesser could have done just as good a job. Too bad self-publishing was not around in 1928. The big publishers were not interested in taking a risk and printing the graphic material. The heart of the story is truly the Panzram Papers themselves, which are a passionate autobiographical depiction of the life of a criminal. Unfortunately the book is not as passionate. The stuff on Sinclair I felt dragged the story flow. But the book was on a deadline and thus, there was material which was excluded from the book, some by choice and some, through no fault of the authors or publisher, may not have been known about at the time. This book really needs a proper re-release with the additional material included such as Jim Long's Afterward which has never been printed to this day. It also seems that there is some misinformation. Carl Panzram cannot be put into a box...literally. He cannot have a label placed on him. He can have many, some of which would be: grandiose, psychopath, intelligent, truthful, prison reformer, writer, philosopher, teacher, coward, martyr, career criminal, serial killer, innocent victim, escape artist, shapeshifter and inventor. There are hundreds of lessons to learn from Carl Panzram's life. And they are a lot more realistic and obtainable than that other book about a martyr which so many people seem to read. Read Panzram's words, they are the heart, soul, and truth of the his story.
Well written account of a true monster. I've always wondered what made people like this do such awful and disgusting things as described in this book. I now have a better understanding after reading it. Not all criminals are made by bad parenting skills and savage prison systems, but in this case it can't be mistaken what lead this man into what he would eventually become. Everything about Carl Panzram's story is a tragedy. His days as a child, adulthood, his confessed murders,the sickening natures of these murders and even his own death (which he gladly welcomed with open arms) will make anyone thankful they were not subject to these conditions.
redeeming value? In response to Shawn Sutherland's ponderance as to whether one might find redeeming value to reading about such a fellow as Carl Panzram, perhaps one might question what created such a man? And by discovering this one might prevent another such creature. Of course I'm presupposing that you find Mr. Panzram's actions to be something that this world couldn't use. I find myself admiring Mr. Panzram and striving to be more like him. Can you blame him for being disgusted with his fellow race? I find myself hating you more with each passing day. You allowed a man who has caused much more havoc and has done many more "evil" deeds to be elected to the office of the President of the United States. Yet you find fault with Mr. Panzram? You are a strange person. If you want to know what your society is making of men, then read about Carl Panzram. Perhaps then you will get an inkling of what you are capable. Dare you be as humane as Mr. Panzram. For is it not human nature to war on one another?
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