Book-It 'o11! Book #56
The Fifty Books Challenge, year three! (Years one and two, just in case you're curious.) This was a library request.
Title: Green River Serial Killer--Biography of an Unsuspecting Wife by Pennie Morehead
Details: Copyright 2007, Branden Books
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "Judith Ridgway had been neglected, misunderstood, and abused until she met the man of her dreams, Gary Ridgway, who has become known as The Green River Serial Killer by the rest of the world.
For fourteen happy years, Judith shared her life with an attentive and kind husband, never suspecting there was a secret side to the man she loved until the storybook romance of her life turned into a terrifying nightmare.
Gary Ridgway masterfully managed his two identities: one that included romantic vacations, bicycling, and raising poodles with his wife, the other that included obsessions with a two-decade habit of soliciting prostitutes and young runaway girls near the Seattle-Tacoma Airport, strangling those who angered him. Subsequent to his arrest in 2001, Gary confessed to murdering 48 females, in a deal that spared his life. In addition, he alluded to his having killed many more too many to remember!
Green River Serial Killer Biography of an Unsuspecting Wife examines America's most deadly serial killer through the loving eyes of his wife. Also included in this exclusive, authorized biography, are photographs from the Ridgway private albums, letters handwritten by Gary from prison, and the author's own professional analysis of his handwriting."
Why I Wanted to Read It: The Green River case has fascinated me ever since I saw the acclaimed film about Bob Keppel's work with Ted Bundy to find the killer. Also, the case being a touch-point for frustration at classism (the victims don't matter because they were poor/prostitutes/runaways), sexism and misogyny (the victims don't matter because women should known better than to go out at night, let alone with strange men), and racism (the victims don't matter because they were primarily Black) that's turned up numerous times.
While the killer's wife did not have the speculation around her that the wife of serial killer BTK did (possibly because Judith Ridgway was Ridgway's third wife and they shared no children), the premise is a fascinating one.
How I Liked It: Take personal access to the serial killer that's tallied up the most victims in American history, his unsuspecting wife willing to be interviewed and cooperate with a biographer, and how can you possibly not have a fascinating book?
Here's how: start with a first-time author who has no formal experience either in journalism (or writing whatsoever) or in the study of crime and give her the job (with no editors or even proofreaders) based on the fact she has "special training" in graphology (the study of handwriting) for human resources and happened to have an acquaintance that had a friend who happened to be married to Gary Ridgway and wanted to have his handwriting analyzed (by someone with experience in analyzing it for potential personality compatibility in potential employees for company cohesiveness) to see if it revealed if he could be a murderer.
That sounds like the premise of a darkly hilarious cult film, rather than the back story of this book. But that's the truth of it. Books of this type have had more twisted beginnings and turned out brilliantly. This is not one of them.
From the frequent typos to the clumsy wording (one example: "Helen's biological mother had become erotically active by the age of thirteen and was drinking alcohol excessively." pg 18; Is "erotically active" like "sexually active"?) to the shoddy-design on the cover to the disorganized photograph pages (a grinning vacation snapshot of Judith and Ridgway from the mid '90s inexplicably sits next to a formal studio portrait of Judith's biological father), this book screams "self-published".
Which of course begs the question: Why? Certainly Judith Ridgway must've been inundated with offers to tell her story (the book discusses desperate pleas for interviews including formal bouquets of flowers sent to her home by news organizations courting her response), why on earth would she go with an inexperienced author who devotes a lengthy chapter in the book to the rather sketchy science of graphology, something with which she has no training for crime analysis?
To be fair, the book does start out decently enough in setting the hook by opening with the morning of Ridgway's arrest in 2001, and in the next chapter, beginning Judith's life story chronologically. It's something the author no doubt patted herself on the back for doing, as it's just about the only competent writing that takes place.
From there, the book sputters and putters along well enough as we're taken through Judith's life from her grandmother's early, er, "erotic activeness" to the horrible day in 2001 when the police come a-calling for good this time (and we pick up from the opening chapter). Awkward wording (such as the example I cited above) litters the book and strongly suggests barely even a second reading. As far as grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling, it takes hard work to not grab a pencil and start correcting errors (the particular copy I received from the library bore marks that suggested a previous reader had done exactly that).
Once we get past what's technically the end of the book (which isn't given a proper ending really), which is Judith's ephiphany in 2005 to move forward and "let go of Gary in her heart", the author proceeds to pad it out (after all, it'd been only 132 pages, thus far) by throwing in some collected facts that were something that should've been integrated into the writing, not offered as some sort of appendix. She lists an interview with "Best Friends of The Ridgways", which includes Jim, Ridgway's coworker and his wife Linda, who befriended Judith and happens to be the very acquaintance who approached the author in the first place (not that the author mentions this until a later chapter in the book). The chapter that follows is a curious three pager entitled "Gary's Comments From Prison" and basically appears to update the information about Ridgway's case that should've been integrated into the final chapters of Judith's story. She ends the chapter with a description of Gary's life in prison that sounds more like a tour guide for a "weird travels" segment than the description of the final prison of the murderer of over four dozen women and girls ("With a foreboding address of: 1313 North 13th, the superstitious are sure to be spooked." pg 147) and an almost-brag that Gary Ridgway agreed through letter communication to contact the author via phone for an interview. As she puts it,
“I would be the first person, other than law enforcement, to interview him since incarceration despite numerous requests. On the day that I interviewed him, he gave up his "yard time" and called me collect:” (pg 147)
And no, that isn't a typo on my part: the author actually ends the sentence and the chapter with a colon.
The next chapter, as to be expected, is her interview, verbatim, with Ridgway. This is more information that should've been integrated in the book, not offered in a back and forth like quick celebrity piece. Ridgway's "um"s and "yeah"s are distracting and the interview is virtually useless as to any insight into Ridgway, an immense waste of the rare opportunity the author was given.
Then we have what is possibly the longest chapter in the book, the analysis of Ridgway's handwriting. We are treated to a potted history of graphology and the author puffing out her resume and droning on about the difficulties of being an expert in a field that is so misunderstood and disrespected. When she finally gets to Ridgway's handwriting, she doesn't offer, say, the frequency of law enforcement actually using graphology nor does she discuss ways in which it's used regarding criminology, period. She goes into detail about what her "special training" has enabled her to do: analyze the handwriting of potential hires for companies to see if their personalities would be a good fit for the business and for their coworkers. Yes, their handwriting. To her credit, the author at least offers what she's been trained to do, which is analyze handwriting for companies. She offers that if she'd been given Ridgway's handwriting to screen for Kenworth (the trucking plant that employed Ridgway for 32 years), she'd have submitted that
“Gary was an excellent match for the position of truck painter for several reasons. His strong emotional control and disinterest in expressing emotion with coworkers enabled him to spend time alone with trucks. He did not require interaction with people, so working with inanimate objects was a good fit for him. His desire to perform his duties well and receive recognition pushed him to earn perfect attendance awards and praise from superiors about the quality of his work. And his slow, deliberate handwriting with wide slow humps on his "m" and "n" letters indicated that he learned new information through visual and tactile opportunities.” (pg 176)
You catch all that? Never mind that the author is working backwards and thus, to paraphrase one skeptic regarding the believers of Nostradamus, "painting a target around where the arrow landed and calling it a direct hit." She labors over these points as well as offering up a sample of Charles Manson's handwriting (the two men actually don't have much in common, other than being notorious; Manson was a career criminal and an eventual cult leader of spree-killers rather than a serial killer such as Ridgway). The book ends stuffed with aforementioned disorganized photographs and full letters (and signed birthday cards) from Ridgway to Judith.
There is so much potential here that was utterly squandered. When I think of what an Ann Rule would have made of this kind of access (and I intend to read her book on the case, Green River, Running Red), it's astounding. This is a subject that is strike-oil rich with possibility on storytelling alone: a tragic figure of a woman essentially abused her entire life only to wind up unwittingly married to the most prolific serial killer in American history and lose absolutely everything of the meager life she'd managed to cobble together. The insight into the mind of a serial killer (which is surely why most individuals pick up this book) and the incredible, frustrating, fascinating how of how you could be married to one and never even know it is not only a ball dropped by the author, it's barely even reached for; she's far too busy fussing over her graphology skills.
I've said time and again that the worst books I've ever experienced are generally those that had the most potential and that are so easy to envision as amazing, valuable reads. This one is not only a case of literary waste, but of a disservice to society as a whole to learn about the mechanics in which a Gary Ridgway could exist and go unnoticed and undetected.
Notable: A touchy area of sloppiness: Judith's first husband, Lee Lynch, am abusive, self-centered eccentric with a bordering-on-creepy infatuation with antiques (particularly Victoriana) and Renaissance faires and a voracious sexual appetite for people other than his meek wife.
Most annoying about this is possibly the fact that the author uses bisexual and homosexual interchangeably.Lynch approaches Judith roughly three years and two daughters into their marriage with a revelation.
“Judith's head snapped up from her sewing projects. Had someone just walked into the room? She had been concentrating so intensely, the shuffling noise startled her. Oh, it was Lee. Why was he looking so troubled? Had something happened to his mother? Judith's heartbeat quickened.
Lee cleared his throat. "Judith, I have something to tell you."
"Uh-okay."
"You know how I told you I was going to union meetings?"
"Uh-yes."
"Well, that's not where I was really spending my time. You see, Judith, My Lady, I am what they call bisexual. I have been doing on dates with men."
Judith felt complete bewilderment. She had trouble forming words. After several moments, she asked, "What is 'bisexual'?" She had never heard the term before.
"It means that I enjoy having sex with both men and women."
"Oh." Judith, thinking that her husband had unfortunately contracted some contagious bug that created the bisexual symptoms just as a viral infection might induce coughing and fever, asked hopefully, "Is there anything that might cure you?"
"No, My Lady, there is not."
"Then, what do we do?" Judith implored. Lee always knew what to do.
"We don't do anything. I will meet other men and go on dates with them, and we will still be married-- just like before. But it is absolutely necessary that you never, never tell anybody about this condition that I have. That's just between the two of us. And, Judith, we must never speak any of this to any of the people at the synagogue. If they found out, we would be in big trouble. Do you understand, Judith, My Love?"” (pg 50, 51)
Later in the book when Judith tells Ridgway about her first husband, the author doesn't make a distinction between bisexuality and homosexuality; also, in the beginning of the book, the two husbands are compared for their selection of Judith to be the mask for their "secret lives". Whether the author is parroting Judith's own ignorance and/or bigotry about the subject or substituting her own, it should be made clear. The reader is given the impression that it's the stereotype of "male bisexual= gay man who won't admit it" and Judith's husband was not a philandering promiscuous individual who happened to pursue sexual partners other than his wife that were both male and female, but a philandering promiscuous individual who happened to pursue sexual partners other than his wife that were male.
Either way, it's sloppy (and in keeping with the rest of the book) and in an area that should be treaded far more carefully.
Title: Green River Serial Killer--Biography of an Unsuspecting Wife by Pennie Morehead
Details: Copyright 2007, Branden Books
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "Judith Ridgway had been neglected, misunderstood, and abused until she met the man of her dreams, Gary Ridgway, who has become known as The Green River Serial Killer by the rest of the world.
For fourteen happy years, Judith shared her life with an attentive and kind husband, never suspecting there was a secret side to the man she loved until the storybook romance of her life turned into a terrifying nightmare.
Gary Ridgway masterfully managed his two identities: one that included romantic vacations, bicycling, and raising poodles with his wife, the other that included obsessions with a two-decade habit of soliciting prostitutes and young runaway girls near the Seattle-Tacoma Airport, strangling those who angered him. Subsequent to his arrest in 2001, Gary confessed to murdering 48 females, in a deal that spared his life. In addition, he alluded to his having killed many more too many to remember!
Green River Serial Killer Biography of an Unsuspecting Wife examines America's most deadly serial killer through the loving eyes of his wife. Also included in this exclusive, authorized biography, are photographs from the Ridgway private albums, letters handwritten by Gary from prison, and the author's own professional analysis of his handwriting."
Why I Wanted to Read It: The Green River case has fascinated me ever since I saw the acclaimed film about Bob Keppel's work with Ted Bundy to find the killer. Also, the case being a touch-point for frustration at classism (the victims don't matter because they were poor/prostitutes/runaways), sexism and misogyny (the victims don't matter because women should known better than to go out at night, let alone with strange men), and racism (the victims don't matter because they were primarily Black) that's turned up numerous times.
While the killer's wife did not have the speculation around her that the wife of serial killer BTK did (possibly because Judith Ridgway was Ridgway's third wife and they shared no children), the premise is a fascinating one.
How I Liked It: Take personal access to the serial killer that's tallied up the most victims in American history, his unsuspecting wife willing to be interviewed and cooperate with a biographer, and how can you possibly not have a fascinating book?
Here's how: start with a first-time author who has no formal experience either in journalism (or writing whatsoever) or in the study of crime and give her the job (with no editors or even proofreaders) based on the fact she has "special training" in graphology (the study of handwriting) for human resources and happened to have an acquaintance that had a friend who happened to be married to Gary Ridgway and wanted to have his handwriting analyzed (by someone with experience in analyzing it for potential personality compatibility in potential employees for company cohesiveness) to see if it revealed if he could be a murderer.
That sounds like the premise of a darkly hilarious cult film, rather than the back story of this book. But that's the truth of it. Books of this type have had more twisted beginnings and turned out brilliantly. This is not one of them.
From the frequent typos to the clumsy wording (one example: "Helen's biological mother had become erotically active by the age of thirteen and was drinking alcohol excessively." pg 18; Is "erotically active" like "sexually active"?) to the shoddy-design on the cover to the disorganized photograph pages (a grinning vacation snapshot of Judith and Ridgway from the mid '90s inexplicably sits next to a formal studio portrait of Judith's biological father), this book screams "self-published".
Which of course begs the question: Why? Certainly Judith Ridgway must've been inundated with offers to tell her story (the book discusses desperate pleas for interviews including formal bouquets of flowers sent to her home by news organizations courting her response), why on earth would she go with an inexperienced author who devotes a lengthy chapter in the book to the rather sketchy science of graphology, something with which she has no training for crime analysis?
To be fair, the book does start out decently enough in setting the hook by opening with the morning of Ridgway's arrest in 2001, and in the next chapter, beginning Judith's life story chronologically. It's something the author no doubt patted herself on the back for doing, as it's just about the only competent writing that takes place.
From there, the book sputters and putters along well enough as we're taken through Judith's life from her grandmother's early, er, "erotic activeness" to the horrible day in 2001 when the police come a-calling for good this time (and we pick up from the opening chapter). Awkward wording (such as the example I cited above) litters the book and strongly suggests barely even a second reading. As far as grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling, it takes hard work to not grab a pencil and start correcting errors (the particular copy I received from the library bore marks that suggested a previous reader had done exactly that).
Once we get past what's technically the end of the book (which isn't given a proper ending really), which is Judith's ephiphany in 2005 to move forward and "let go of Gary in her heart", the author proceeds to pad it out (after all, it'd been only 132 pages, thus far) by throwing in some collected facts that were something that should've been integrated into the writing, not offered as some sort of appendix. She lists an interview with "Best Friends of The Ridgways", which includes Jim, Ridgway's coworker and his wife Linda, who befriended Judith and happens to be the very acquaintance who approached the author in the first place (not that the author mentions this until a later chapter in the book). The chapter that follows is a curious three pager entitled "Gary's Comments From Prison" and basically appears to update the information about Ridgway's case that should've been integrated into the final chapters of Judith's story. She ends the chapter with a description of Gary's life in prison that sounds more like a tour guide for a "weird travels" segment than the description of the final prison of the murderer of over four dozen women and girls ("With a foreboding address of: 1313 North 13th, the superstitious are sure to be spooked." pg 147) and an almost-brag that Gary Ridgway agreed through letter communication to contact the author via phone for an interview. As she puts it,
“I would be the first person, other than law enforcement, to interview him since incarceration despite numerous requests. On the day that I interviewed him, he gave up his "yard time" and called me collect:” (pg 147)
And no, that isn't a typo on my part: the author actually ends the sentence and the chapter with a colon.
The next chapter, as to be expected, is her interview, verbatim, with Ridgway. This is more information that should've been integrated in the book, not offered in a back and forth like quick celebrity piece. Ridgway's "um"s and "yeah"s are distracting and the interview is virtually useless as to any insight into Ridgway, an immense waste of the rare opportunity the author was given.
Then we have what is possibly the longest chapter in the book, the analysis of Ridgway's handwriting. We are treated to a potted history of graphology and the author puffing out her resume and droning on about the difficulties of being an expert in a field that is so misunderstood and disrespected. When she finally gets to Ridgway's handwriting, she doesn't offer, say, the frequency of law enforcement actually using graphology nor does she discuss ways in which it's used regarding criminology, period. She goes into detail about what her "special training" has enabled her to do: analyze the handwriting of potential hires for companies to see if their personalities would be a good fit for the business and for their coworkers. Yes, their handwriting. To her credit, the author at least offers what she's been trained to do, which is analyze handwriting for companies. She offers that if she'd been given Ridgway's handwriting to screen for Kenworth (the trucking plant that employed Ridgway for 32 years), she'd have submitted that
“Gary was an excellent match for the position of truck painter for several reasons. His strong emotional control and disinterest in expressing emotion with coworkers enabled him to spend time alone with trucks. He did not require interaction with people, so working with inanimate objects was a good fit for him. His desire to perform his duties well and receive recognition pushed him to earn perfect attendance awards and praise from superiors about the quality of his work. And his slow, deliberate handwriting with wide slow humps on his "m" and "n" letters indicated that he learned new information through visual and tactile opportunities.” (pg 176)
You catch all that? Never mind that the author is working backwards and thus, to paraphrase one skeptic regarding the believers of Nostradamus, "painting a target around where the arrow landed and calling it a direct hit." She labors over these points as well as offering up a sample of Charles Manson's handwriting (the two men actually don't have much in common, other than being notorious; Manson was a career criminal and an eventual cult leader of spree-killers rather than a serial killer such as Ridgway). The book ends stuffed with aforementioned disorganized photographs and full letters (and signed birthday cards) from Ridgway to Judith.
There is so much potential here that was utterly squandered. When I think of what an Ann Rule would have made of this kind of access (and I intend to read her book on the case, Green River, Running Red), it's astounding. This is a subject that is strike-oil rich with possibility on storytelling alone: a tragic figure of a woman essentially abused her entire life only to wind up unwittingly married to the most prolific serial killer in American history and lose absolutely everything of the meager life she'd managed to cobble together. The insight into the mind of a serial killer (which is surely why most individuals pick up this book) and the incredible, frustrating, fascinating how of how you could be married to one and never even know it is not only a ball dropped by the author, it's barely even reached for; she's far too busy fussing over her graphology skills.
I've said time and again that the worst books I've ever experienced are generally those that had the most potential and that are so easy to envision as amazing, valuable reads. This one is not only a case of literary waste, but of a disservice to society as a whole to learn about the mechanics in which a Gary Ridgway could exist and go unnoticed and undetected.
Notable: A touchy area of sloppiness: Judith's first husband, Lee Lynch, am abusive, self-centered eccentric with a bordering-on-creepy infatuation with antiques (particularly Victoriana) and Renaissance faires and a voracious sexual appetite for people other than his meek wife.
Most annoying about this is possibly the fact that the author uses bisexual and homosexual interchangeably.Lynch approaches Judith roughly three years and two daughters into their marriage with a revelation.
“Judith's head snapped up from her sewing projects. Had someone just walked into the room? She had been concentrating so intensely, the shuffling noise startled her. Oh, it was Lee. Why was he looking so troubled? Had something happened to his mother? Judith's heartbeat quickened.
Lee cleared his throat. "Judith, I have something to tell you."
"Uh-okay."
"You know how I told you I was going to union meetings?"
"Uh-yes."
"Well, that's not where I was really spending my time. You see, Judith, My Lady, I am what they call bisexual. I have been doing on dates with men."
Judith felt complete bewilderment. She had trouble forming words. After several moments, she asked, "What is 'bisexual'?" She had never heard the term before.
"It means that I enjoy having sex with both men and women."
"Oh." Judith, thinking that her husband had unfortunately contracted some contagious bug that created the bisexual symptoms just as a viral infection might induce coughing and fever, asked hopefully, "Is there anything that might cure you?"
"No, My Lady, there is not."
"Then, what do we do?" Judith implored. Lee always knew what to do.
"We don't do anything. I will meet other men and go on dates with them, and we will still be married-- just like before. But it is absolutely necessary that you never, never tell anybody about this condition that I have. That's just between the two of us. And, Judith, we must never speak any of this to any of the people at the synagogue. If they found out, we would be in big trouble. Do you understand, Judith, My Love?"” (pg 50, 51)
Later in the book when Judith tells Ridgway about her first husband, the author doesn't make a distinction between bisexuality and homosexuality; also, in the beginning of the book, the two husbands are compared for their selection of Judith to be the mask for their "secret lives". Whether the author is parroting Judith's own ignorance and/or bigotry about the subject or substituting her own, it should be made clear. The reader is given the impression that it's the stereotype of "male bisexual= gay man who won't admit it" and Judith's husband was not a philandering promiscuous individual who happened to pursue sexual partners other than his wife that were both male and female, but a philandering promiscuous individual who happened to pursue sexual partners other than his wife that were male.
Either way, it's sloppy (and in keeping with the rest of the book) and in an area that should be treaded far more carefully.