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The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime that Changed America
W. W. Norton
March 2014
On Sale: February 18, 2014
256 pages ISBN: 0393239284 EAN: 9780393239287 Kindle: B00DX5X93Y Hardcover / e-Book
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True Crime
At last, the true story of a crime that shocked the
world. New York City, 1964. A young woman is
stabbed to death on her front stoop—a murder the New
York Times called “a frozen moment of dramatic,
disturbing social change.” The victim, Catherine “Kitty”
Genovese, became an urban martyr, butchered by a sociopathic
killer in plain sight of thirty-eight neighbors who “didn’t
want to get involved.” Her sensational case provoked an
anxious outcry and launched a sociological theory known as
the “Bystander Effect.” That’s the narrative told by the
Times, movies, TV programs, and countless
psychology textbooks. But as award-winning author Kevin Cook
reveals, the Genovese story is just that, a story. The truth
is far more compelling—and so is the victim. Now, on
the fiftieth anniversary of her murder, Cook presents the
real Kitty Genovese. She was a vibrant young
woman—unbeknownst to most, a lesbian—a bartender working
(and dancing) her way through the colorful, fast-changing
New York of the ’60s, a cultural kaleidoscope marred by the
Kennedy assassination, the Cold War, and race riots.
Downtown, Greenwich Village teemed with beatniks, folkies,
and so-called misfits like Kitty and her lover. Kitty
Genovese evokes the Village’s gay and lesbian underground
with deep feeling and colorful detail. Cook also
reconstructs the crime itself, tracing the movements of
Genovese’s killer, Winston Moseley, whose disturbing trial
testimony made him a terrifying figure to police and
citizens alike, especially after his escape from Attica
State Prison. Drawing on a trove of long-lost
documents, plus new interviews with her lover and other key
figures, Cook explores the enduring legacy of the case. His
heartbreaking account of what really happened on the night
Genovese died is the most accurate and chilling to date.
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