Details
| Size | | Length: | 448 pages | | Height: | 7.0 in | | Width: | 4.3 in | | Thickness: | 1.2 in | | Weight: | 9.6 oz |
Industry Reviews
In the summer of 1966, America lost its innocence when two mass murders were committed. In Chicago Richard Speck murdered eight student nurses, and 19 days later, on August 1, Charles Whitman gunned down people from the tower at the University of Texas at Austin, killing 16 and wounding 31. Lavergne, director of admissions and guidance services of the College Board's Southwest Regional Office, attempts to answer this question by writing the first full historical analysis of the event. Using primary sources and photographs, the author has done an excellent job of describing Whitman's murdering rampage. Was it caused by his domineering father, a brain tumor found during an autopsy, or both of the above? Lavergne examines these explanations and others as to why Whitman committed such a terrible deed. A good choice for true-crime collections. Michael Sawyer, Clinton P.L., Iowa
Stefanatos
Through painstaking research and exhaustive analysis, Lavergne recreates the tragic and gripping circumstances that led "all-American" 25-year-old Charles Whitman to gun down 45 people from the University of Texas Tower in 1966. Lavergne homes in on the workings of Whitman's mind, finding that despite his middle-class upbringing, piano lessons, his scouting accomplishments (Whitman was among the youngest Eagle Scouts in history) and his Marine training, Whitman was tormented by his competitive, dictatorial father. Drawing from news accounts, interviews and Whitman's own writings, Lavergne argues that Whitman didn't suddenly snap, as has been previously thought, but descended slowly into madness. He "became a killer," Lavergne concludes, "because he did not respect or admire himself." At times, Lavergne gets bogged down in his quest to have the last word on Whitman, as when he dwells on such minutiae as whether Whitman's slayer, Officer Ramiro Martinez, enjoyed a pork steak or "piece of meat," before being summoned to campus. But as the events of August 1, 1966, unfold, Lavergne's fastidious approach generates substantial tension. Lavergne doesn't claim, as others have, that authorities should have anticipated violence from Whitman, especially given his confession to a psychiatrist some weeks before his pillage that he had thoughts "about going up on the Tower with a deer rifle and shooting people." Instead, Lavergne argues that the failure to recognize the warning signs testifies to how, in a state of innocence, "a nation discovered mass murder." This is the first book-length study of Whitman, and given the thoroughness of Lavergne's work, it may well remain the only one. Photos and maps. (May)
Lopate
Lavergne has written the first full-length treatment of Whitman and the troubled life that brought him to his mass killings and death at the hands of Austin Police Department officers. Based on official records, newspaper accounts, and some interviews, Lavergne's book provides a straightforward narrative of Whitman's upbringing, brief career as a student at the University of Texas, and the bloody and terrible occurrences that . . . took so many innocent lives. Whether Lavergne's work has any enduring historical significance is a more difficult issue. . . . [He] contends that Whitman was more evil than crazy, but even that reasonable judgment does not invest his act with lasting consequence beyond the annals of spectacular crimes. . . . His awful deeds probably merited at least one book, and for that Lavergne's workmanlike study will suffice.
Annotation copyright H.W. Wilson Company.
Gould
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