Gordon Burn was a unique, brilliant writer ( Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son, Alma Cogan) and this book takes on the awful, awful story of Fred and Rose West, one of the most ghastly murder cases ever to have happened in England. Although it sets out to explore the lives of Fred and Rosemary West – along with Peter Sutcliffe, the most notorious figures in recent British criminal history – Happy like Murderers reads more like a novel than a documentary. In this respect, it recalls Truman Capote’s ‘novel of fact’, In Cold Blood, which made compelling fiction out of the brutal and senseless murder of an apparently typical American family in rural Kansas, and created a new genre on the way. ‘Brutal’ and ‘senseless’ are, of course, the terms customarily used to describe such crimes, part of the mechanism by which a society distances itself from the horror it discovers in its midst; the most common epithets for the perpetrators are ‘monster’ and ‘madman’. Fred West’s pet name for Rose was ‘cow’. He constantly referred to her as his cow. He called her this for many years. He was always talking about wanting to put her with a bull. ‘I, Rosemary West, known as Fred’s cow ...’ one document recovered from the attic in Cromwell Street begins. And it ends: ‘I must always dress and try to act like a cow for Fred, also to bathe and wash when I am told. Signed Mrs R.P. West.’ Fred would do some cow paintings for Rose, oil-paintings of Jerseys and Friesians, varnish and frame them and hang them in her bedroom. Paintings of cows hanging on the wall at the end of her bed so that every morning, right up to the morning she was arrested on suspicion of murder, they would be the first things the would see. La maldad está en todos lados, en un rostro amable, en una mano amiga, y tal vez en el lugar menos esperado, tu propia familia.

Happy like murderers : Burn, Gordon, 1948-2009 : Free

In a lifetime of reading both fiction and non-fiction, especially extensively across the genres of dark crime and horror, Happy Like Murderers by Gordon Burn is easily one of the most unremittingly bleak books I've ever come across. David Robson writes: I was fortunate to be a friend of Gordon's for nearly 40 years, and as a magazine editor commissioned many pieces from him. He always knew what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. Not much editing was required, which was just as well – he didn't take kindly to it. He had a phenomenal eye for telling detail, an acute ear and an unusual ability to get to the truth of a situation. From the start he was clear to the point of truculence about what he was and was not interested in, and over the years he showed such constancy of vision and fixity of purpose that his became a strong and unique voice. He was never middle-of-the-road, and spotted many truths about modern life that others missed.

When I first heard about this book, I was unsure of how this style would work. My feeling was that too much narrative and desription might overwhelm the facts of the case and possibly stumble into the tar-pit of unfounded speculation and outright fabrication in creating some scenes. However I can report that Burn has done an excellent job in crafting this work and manages to illustrate the events rather embroider them. Stylistically, Burn uses the repetition and variations of certain key phrases that sketch in atmosphere and psychological themes. Some readers may find these echoes in the text annoying, but I found them to an elegant device which highlight the progression of the West's crimes, illuminate the links between past and present events, and reiterate recurring impressions and opinions.

Gordon Burn | Gordon Burn | The Guardian Gordon Burn | Gordon Burn | The Guardian

Este libro es posiblemente el libro mas perverso que he leído en mi vida. Si existiera la biblioteca prohibida de Harry Potter este libro estaría ahí. Este libro me hizo entender a los censores. Burns started by writing about the world he knew. He was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, the only child of a mother who worked at Binns, the city's department store, and a father who was a paint-sprayer. He had an outside lavatory, an uncle who kept pigeons and a regular place in the teenage queue for football stars' autographs outside St James's Park. Solo me queda decir que he quedado fascinada y aterrada al terminar de leer este libro. A veces la realidad supera la ficción, y los West son para mí la personificación de toda aquella maldad que vive en nosotros, esa oscuridad que mantenemos oculta y a raya, a la espera de una oportunidad, para cometer los actos más crueles. Solo se necesita una chispa, y el círculo vicioso comienza… Long, brilliant, horrifying ... Burn researched with great care every detail (my God, the detail) of what went on in the Wests' household over decades.' - Libby Purves, The Times Gordon Burn nos relata con lujo de detalle los terribles acontecimientos ocurridos en la casa de Rose y Fred West, donde fueron hallados los cadáveres de varias mujeres, incluyendo el de Heather, la hija mayor de los West. El autor va más allá de la casa, y nos transporta al pasado de estos asesinos en serie, intentando comprender y encontrar el origen de tanta maldad.Fue un libro difícil de leer por dos razones: la primera y la más evidente es por los hechos que describe, la segunda es por el estilo narrativo, por momentos sentía que no avanzaba nada. Muy decepcionada con este libro. El tema que trata me fascina y la historia empieza muy bien, pero a medida que avanza la información se va repitiendo una y otra vez (hay frases que se repiten literalmente varias veces). Además está escrito como a trompicones, apenas hay organización cronológica, de manera que es muy difícil seguir los acontecimientos, y no hay ningún tipo de estructuración temática; en definitiva, parece que ni el mismo autor sabe muy bien qué quiere contarnos ni cómo hacerlo, más allá de unos cuantos datos aleatorios. Richard Williams writes: Sport is not always kind to the sort of writers who like to see if two plus two can somehow make five, but Gordon Burn was an exception. Gordon wrote well and interestingly about almost anything, but he brought to his books and columns about sport a balanced combination of insight, enthusiasm, forensic skills and imagination. Tengo muchisima experiencia leyendo libros de true crime, no es un genero nuevo para mi, por eso me doy cuenta enseguida si un libro lo considero bien ejecutado o no..este caso es un no.

Happy Like Murderers - AbeBooks Happy Like Murderers - AbeBooks

La maldad existe es palpable, a veces se acerca dulcemente y esta pareja sabía cómo engatuzar y elegir a sus víctimas. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2012-01-06 17:38:39 Bookplateleaf 0004 Boxid IA176101 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City [London] DonorOnce Upon a True Crime investigates the real-life murders that inspired some of the acclaimed authors’ most famous novels. Lifers (2016) - Geoffrey Wansell Books like this shine lights of horror on aspects of society we generally leave to the most hapless social services. Incest families. Throwaway children. Disappearing teenagers. In February 1994, the bodies of seven women were excavated at the West's house, 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester. As the true horror of what happened there unfolded it became clear that this was the most infamous series of murders in Britain in the 20th century. And the rest of Ronnie Cooper’s men would go drinking together regularly but Fred never wanted to go. He wouldn’t mix with anybody. Good worker, mind. Brilliant worker. He became known for moving large sheets of metal manually rather than wait for the crane to move them. He was very strong and wouldn’t wait because he was on piecework. Always at work. He’d work all the hours God sends. But he wouldn’t mix. He wouldn’t drink. He never drank. He wouldn’t go to a pub at all and always said he was too busy if they asked. Said he had too much to do.