Word: berkowitz
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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KILL FOUR, FIVE or maybe even ten people and you're liable to wind up in a peck of trouble. David Berkowitz found that such actions are likely to generate reams of negative publicity...
With some developing young talent, Harvard's future looks bright. Ethan Berkowitz, a promising freshman from San Francisco, skippered in the "470" National Championships, placed second in the "470" Pacific Coast Championships, and crewed in the Rhodes 19 Nationals for a third-place finish. Freshman Enrique Adsuan was at the helm of a Sunfish in the 1978 World Championships and crewed in Lightnings for his home country of Puerto Rico in the Pan-American Games. Finally Brian Keane, also a freshman, sailed a Laser in the National Sports Festival, where he picked up a silver and a bronze medal...
Considering the competition, then, Jimmy Breslin and Dick Schaap have not committed any grievous sins in writing .44, a novelized account of Berkowitz's 14-month killing spree. But they haven't done much of a service, either: the book reads more like a dime-store cheapie than a presumably classy $10 hardback, and what goes between those hard covers is enough to make you yearn for the good old days, when the Papal Index kept the trash in the barrels and out of the bookstores. Breslin and Schaap offer little more than a Dragnet-style, names-have-been-changed...
...form, which he isn't here, he would not be able to prevent the book from degenerating into a schlockish cops-and-robbers duel. Given the format--the authors were free to create interesting personalities for their fictionalized characters, but most of the plot was determined by Berkowitz's actions--and the purpose of the book--which was apparently to make lots of money--the authors had little freedom. What starts out as a penetrating portrait of the middle-class tragedy that was Berkowitz's first murder, of necessity turns into a fast-paced detective yarn. It seems...
Probably the saddest thing about .44 is that it could have been so much better. The book at times shows flashes of Breslin's brilliance, particularly in the searching descriptions of the various blue-collar, Budweiser-and-Yankees neighborhoods that witnessed Berkowitz's first attacks. In fact, Breslin--who received several letters from the killer, both before and after his capture--was in an ideal spot to portray the anguish and frustration of searching for, and being taunted by, a man who quite accurately referred to himself as "Mr. Monster." And when the book deals with the killings in Forest...