American Honor Killings: Desire and Rage Among Men

(Paperback)

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Exploring crimes against gays from 1999 to 2011, David McConnell shows how some think they're cleaning up society. Other killings feel preordained - not a matter of the victim's lifestyle so much as a twisted display of dominance. Society wants to think these stories are simple cases of sexual conflict. They aren't. Together, the cases form a secret American history of rage and desire. McConnell cuts through clich(c) and politics to turn these cases into enduring literature. In each story, victims, murderers, friends and relatives come breathtakingly alive.

Reviews

McConnell, who is gay, is convinced he has written a book that no straight man could have written, and he's probably right. Navigating the depressing world of these horrific murders would discourage all but the most determined, passionate writers. Finding the humanity in these killers and the nuance in these most inhumane killings would challenge all but the most compassionate of writers.
--LA Weekly

McConnell pays close attention to character, scene, and illuminating details, while questioning masculinity and patriarchal institutions.
--Huffington Post (Recommended true-crime book)

McConnell's research is impressive, his thorough approach itself an 'argument against the destruction or loss of a single detail.' Older, well-documented cases are reenergized with new information, and the stories of the more recent murders are told, for the first time, with the layers of complexity they deserve. Something must be said of this book's timeliness, the experience of reading it after a memorably violent year in America...A book like this is helpful, even downright necessary. It advises against lumping each atrocity into the same pile, reminding us to examine the cases separately--the only way we can begin to understand the roots of this violence and how me might squelch it...McConnell's approach is effective because it's literary, not academic: through extensive research, he's crafted engaging narratives, each populated by characters that demand our attention.
--Oxford American Magazine (Editor's Pick)

As this country again focuses on its endemic violence, David McConnell's book couldn't have arrived at a more apt time. By delving deep into the sexual brutality typically explained away with micro-waved Freudianism, he's given us a work that is searing, personal and yet with a clarity that adds to the national conversation...It's this truth telling, the sifting of sad ashes, that sets this book far above typical genre fare. Reading American Honor Killings is like driving by a forest fire, one vast yet still secretive--a fire that's been burning for a long time.
--Lambda Literary Review

Some may mistakenly think honor killings happen only in far-off, less developed countries, and only to women. But writer David McConnell's collection of short nonfiction pieces about honor killings in America is a searing look at masculinity and male sexual violence. The deep, vivid examination of these cases is masterful and arresting.
--The Advocate (Hot Sheet for March 1, 2013)

In a culture where artists and celebs and everyday LGBT folks talk of being bullied but never of being the bully, McConnell's expos challenges us to acknowledge the natural impulse to violence that rests in everyone.
--The Advocate

In a culture where artists and celebs and everyday LGBT folks talk of being bullied, but never of being the bully, McConnell's expose challenges us to acknowledge the natural impulse to violence that rest in everyone.
--The Advocate (Interview)

Come to these cases for the same reason McConnell does--not for the gore and depravity, but for the wish to understand what shadowy part of American manhood can be so volatile, leading again and again to tragedy. McConnell's careful consideration and painstaking research make American Honor Killings a worthwhile and valuable book.
--Next Magazine

Whether the killers were spurred on by personal slights to their idea of manliness or a fanatical ideology, there is a sense of shattered psychologies that haunts both these pages and the larger American landscape. The eyes of many men in American Honor Killings are hard to look into, but this excellent book makes a case for doing so--even if what's there is not so easy to define.
--Interview Magazine

Some of the finest non-fiction crime writing can be found in David McConnell's new book, American Honor Killings. At its best, Mr. McConnell's writing compares favorably to Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and Norman Mailer's Executioner's Song. It is entirely appropriate that this book is dedicated to Edmund White, because, like Mr. White, David McConnell is the master of both the telling detail and the occasional punchline...it is a remarkable literary achievement. And as often happens in great literature, the biggest questions remain unanswered. I strongly recommend this book.
--Queer Reader

A quick skim of the book will lead readers to see this as a work that highlights brutal crimes against gay men. But the book deserves a more nuanced and careful meditation. Through in-depth research that includes interviews, synthesizing and comparing news articles, traveling to the crime sites and getting to know the environments in which the crimes took place, and an elite novelist's eye for detail and storytelling, American Honor Killings is a work that relates to all men. It somehow made the true and clunky and speculative details of crime read smooth like a Cormac McCarthy novel. The research, especially for a work of literary nonfiction, will immediately remind readers of Truman Capote's masterpiece In Cold Blood, but at times the level of concise detail, especially when considering how McConnell addresses multiple unrelated crimes throughout this book, surpasses even what Capote achieved in his ultra-detailed observation of a singular crime...The book should be required reading in university-level gender studies and criminal justice programs, as well as in nonfiction form workshops.
--The Good Men Project

Subtitled 'Desire and Rage Among Men, ' McConnell's book is a study of murderous hate crimes against gay men. In explaining the reasoning behind his book's provocative title, McConnell notes that America differs significantly from countries where honor killings are pervasive in that its society 'isn't organized by clan or tribe or even family.' Nonetheless, he writes, America is a nation where 'the seat of honor for men is personal, religious, racial, ' and among the worst affronts to that honor today are gay sexuality, 'immodesty, ' and 'decadence.'
--Cleveland.com

McConnell tells these stories through the personal lens of his own experiences, observations, and responses. Moreover, he manages to extend sympathy to perpetrators as well as victims. The result is a blend of true crime journalism and sociological treatise, fascinating and sometimes chilling to read.
--Edge on the Net

McConnell researched these cases extensively, then sat down with the murderers in jailhouse interviews so he could learn more about their motivations and reflections years later. The result is a harrowing bit of creative non-fiction, each case retold and examined thoroughly, complete with McConnell's cogent analysis and first-person accounts of the crimes.
--Xtra Magazine (Canada)

Like Capote, McConnell blurs the lines of fiction and nonfiction. But only aesthetically--I don't mean to suggest that McConnell embroidered his work, as Capote is thought to have done with In Cold Blood. McConnell thinks of facts in terms of form, like there's something to be gained from telling violence as stories, though he won't tell us what.
--Chicago Reader

David McConnell explores the role masculinity plays in violence in his latest work, American Honor Killings: Desire and Rage Among Men. McConnell reports the stories of six instances where both the murders and victims were men, often interviewing the incarcerated prisoners, and how the cases were portrayed in the media.
--Chicago Magazine

And what [McConnell] finds and then conveys in American Honor Killings reminds us that while they are not us, the civilized world, they are more than just 'others' for whom hate crimes legislation is just one small piece of a puzzle that McConnell fearlessly unearths, no matter how rotten what underneath lies.
--LGBT Weekly

[McConnell's] singularly gripping new non-fiction book...stunningly repurposes the strengths he brought to his earlier works: a restless introspection, a refusal to portray people as less than three-dimensional, and a sense of all-pervasive mystery.
*Airplane Read of the Month
--Passport Magazine

McConnell's attempts to compare the ideal of threatened masculinity with the murderous rampages of young men are thoughtfully considered, fleshed out to the point where his narrative reenactments are chilling to read and not for the faint of heart.
--Bay Area Reporter

Subtitled 'Desire and Rage Among Men, ' McConnell's book is a study of murderous hate crimes against gay men.
--Cleveland Plain Dealer

Not for the faint of heart, American Honor Killings: Desire and Rage Among Men is a detailed exploration of hate crime motivated murders of gay men, from 1999 to 2009. McConnell adds his own personal analysis and reflections on the crimes and links them together in a terrifying and all too familiar way.
--Baltimore Out Loud

In this unnervingly beautiful new book, David McConnell investigates six murders of gay men over the last two decades...what's most exciting abou

Author Bio

David McConnell is the author of the acclaimed novel, The Silver Hearted, 2010. His short fiction and journalism have appeared widely in magazines and anthologies, including The Literary Review (UK), Granta and Prospect Magazine (UK). His novel The Firebrat came out in 2003. He's the former co-chair of the Lambda Literary Foundation. McConnell lives in New York City.