Recently we’ve been genuinely disturbed by a remarkable
publication, ostensibly a true crime work, but it’s far more than that. It’s a
literary examination of the environmental impact of industrial pollution (of
the diffusion of toxins) and their possible linkage to the darkest horrors of
human behaviour. It’s also part ‘coming-of-age’
narrative painted against the backdrop of a changing America – during a
time of serial killers.
Written by award-winning
writer Caroline Fraser, ‘Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time
of Serial Killers’ published by FLEET
[an imprint of Little Brown UK / Hachette] is a powerful book, one that disturbs
as it provokes deep, deep thought and reflection.
We wrote at the time of its recent publication -
This
book is most unusual. Ostensibly a true-crime narrative that investigates the
serial killer Ted Bundy and others such as the Green River Killer, the Night
Stalker, the Hillside Strangler, Zodiac, Charles Manson [et. al.] - linked in
terms of their murderous activity to –
[a]
The geography of the Pacific North West of America., both natural as in the
Olympic-Wallowa Lineament [OWL] fault line, as well as man-made structures like the regional “floating
bridges” with their problematic ‘reversible car lanes’.
[b]
The events and socio-political turmoil of America in the 1970s to the 1980s.
[c]
Heavy industry and the chemical poisoning that resulted from the smelters
[metal extraction and purification from molten ores] before environmental
safeguards came into being with the E.P.A.
And
[d] the authors’ own ‘coming of age’ in that region and age.
The
title has inserted “Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers “as a
suffix of sorts which acts as a warning - because this is a disturbing [and at
times distressing] work, but one that provokes deep-thought amidst the
revelations and the revulsion that the author knits from.
Read our full review HERE
We had a few questions for the author and were delighted
when Caroline Fraser agreed to discuss her book.
Ali: Welcome to Great Britain’s Shots
Magazine.
Caroline:
Thanks so much--I'm glad to join
you.
AK: We’re excited to introduce you and this
extraordinary narrative “Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial
Killers” to our readers, but first the most obvious question, what attracted
you to write Murderland?
CF: I'd been thinking on and off for years about
the question of why there were so many serial killers in the Pacific Northwest
in the 1970s and 1980s. I was thirteen
in 1974, living in a suburb of Seattle, when Ted Bundy began abducting and
killing women there (although his crimes may have begun earlier). So I remember the strange sense that there was
a predator out there, combing the streets and beaches for victims, entering
women's rooms in the middle of the night and taking them. Nobody knew where they were for months.
And
I'd always wondered why there was so many incidents of bizarre and violent
crime during the '70s in particular, even on Mercer Island, the fairly sedate
and wealthy suburb where I lived: arson,
bombings, the guy who lived down the street who blew up his house and killed
himself (nearly taking his family with him).
A serial killer who grew up down the street from me. During Covid, all this finally came together
when I had some time to do more research on that era and what might have caused
such mayhem.
AK: “….a
light dusting from the periodic table on top of all that trauma….” Was an interesting line that made me sit up
to attention realising that there could be a credible link between the cruel
violence [particularly of serial killers] and Lead, S02, heavy metals and other
industrial pollutants poisoning the environment, and affecting behaviour – what
led you to see this link?
CF: Oddly, what led me to this link was a real
estate advertisement. About ten years ago, I was looking at ads for undeveloped
property on Vashon Island in Puget Sound.
One ad that said something about "Arsenic remediation needed,"
and I had no idea what that could mean.
Vashon Island is directly across from the city of Tacoma, and I quickly
discovered that the southern end of the island was heavily polluted with both Lead
and Arsenic by a smelter, the ASARCO Copper smelter that had been operating in
Commencement Bay in Tacoma for about a century, from the 1890s to the
1980s.
AK: You grew up in the Pacific Northwest, what
made you incorporate your own early life [including some very personal details]
into the narrative?
CF: In terms of pacing and structure, I felt that
the narrative needed some lighter moments to relieve the truly grim recitations
of murder. I came to feel that the
memoir sections served different purposes, including offering examples of the naiveté
of young girls and women at that time, a naiveté that did not serve them
well. Which is not to say that any of
the girls and women involved were responsible for their attacks, not at
all. Instead, I was trying to show how
the culture set up an environment that enabled these assaults.
The
memoir passages also introduced another kind of crime that was far more common
than serial murder (and not unrelated):
domestic violence.
AK: Of the many serial killers you detail, why
did you focus on Ted Bundy
the most?
CF: Bundy is in a class by himself in some ways,
both in terms of our extensive knowledge about his movements and activities,
and in terms of what he revealed about himself.
Some serial killers have little or nothing to say for themselves (Robert
Lee Yates, Jr. is an example), whereas with others, we have audio and/or video
recordings, such as Ed Kemper, Denis Rader (BTK), and Israel Keyes. Bundy spoke extensively, if hypothetically,
to several interviewers, from both law enforcement and media. And while most serial killers lack insight
and are deceitful in what they say, Bundy did occasionally touch on issues of
motivation and behaviour that I consider extremely revealing.
Also,
since Bundy has been so glamorized in film and TV, I felt it could be corrective
to take a stark, unvarnished look at the grotesque nature of what he did.
Most
importantly, and more than anybody else in Murderland, Bundy provides a
startling example of somebody who was exposed to a significant amount of lead
growing up, first in Philadelphia, then in Tacoma. Thanks to the GIS maps of the Tacoma smelter
plume, we can see exactly how much lead and arsenic were in in his front yard
and his back yard. What you make of that
is up to you, but these are undeniable facts.
AK: I found the linkages to the literary world
fascinating with mentions of Dashiell Hammett, Frank Herbert and even Stephen
King, would you care to comment?
CF: I loved delving into those connections. Hammett's noir depiction of Tacoma and Herbert's
ecological take on the overwhelming despoliation of his hometown provide
real depth to the historical portrait of a place that had been suffering
intensive ruination for decades.
As for
Stephen King, the fact that he began his career by publishing Carrie, a
classic masterpiece of horror based on a young woman's systematic degradation,
in 1974, the year of the rise of serial killers, was too good to pass up.
AK: The book has a vast appendix which
illustrates the incredible research behind “Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust
in the Time of Serial Killers” so can you
let us know a little about the process in writing this book.
CF: I knew that the research would be intensive, so
I began keeping detailed timelines of the narrative of the book. The timelines were tied to notes confirming
where I'd found certain details.
Ancestry.com and newspapers.com were resources that I used heavily, and
I archived many of these sources to keep track of them.
AK: The book is a very dark and terrifying
narrative so what were you [as a person] like during the writing?
CF: Everybody asks me some version of this
question. I wonder if it has something
to do with the fact that Michelle
McNamara, the author of I'll Be Gone in the Dark, her book about the
search for the Golden State Killer, died,
sadly, of a drug overdose, while she was reporting it.
I
don't think working on this made me any more gloomy or pessimistic than I
already am! To be sure, parts of this
book were difficult to write, but not more difficult, probably, than any of the
books that Ann Rule wrote over her long career as a crime writer. Because so much of the material was
historical, it was removed in time, and I think that may make a difference as
well. Not that it wasn't
horrifying. It was.
AK: So what’s next up for Caroline Fraser,
more journalism or more non-fiction or even fiction [as Murderland: Crime and
Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers reads almost like a SF-thriller novel
in places…]?
CF: Ha!
That's lovely to hear, but I'm not really contemplating fiction. There are a couple of biographies I'm
thinking about, but I haven't made my mind up yet. I think I'll be taking a little time off and
trying to decide.
AK: And finally, are you a true-crime reader –
and what books have you read both fiction and non-fiction?
CF: I re-read some classics while working on this
book, including Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, Robert Graysmith's Zodiac,
and Curt
Gentry & Vincent Bugliosi's Helter Skelter. I re-read a lot of gothic horror, including
Bram Stoker's Dracula (which I love) and Robert Louis Stevenson's The
Strange Tale of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which turns up in my book.
Over
the years, I've read a lot of true-crime, beginning with Ann Rule's famous The
Stranger Beside Me and many of her others.
While writing Murderland, I acquired a stack of old True
Detective magazines that she'd written for in the 1970s under a pseudonym. I'll Be Gone in
the Dark, mentioned above, was inspirational, and Maureen
Callahan's American Predator offered valuable reporting on Israel Keyes.
AK: Thank you for your time and insight, very
much appreciated.
CF: Thank
you!
About Caroline
Fraser
Caroline Fraser was born in Seattle and holds a Ph.D. from
Harvard University in English and American literature. Formerly on the editorial
staff of The New Yorker, she is the author of three nonfiction books, the
Pulitzer Prize-winning Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls
Wilder, God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church,
and Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution, all
published by Metropolitan Books. She served as editor of the Library of America
edition of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books and has written for The
New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Atlantic Monthly, Outside
Magazine, and The London Review of Books, among other publications.
She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with her husband, Hal
Espen.
For more information Click HERE
Shots
Magazine would like to thank Caroline Fraser for her time and to Zoe Hood of Fleet
/ Little Brown UK / Hachette publishing for helping to organise this
interview.
Author Photo © Hal Epsen all other graphics provided by Fleet
Publishing, Google Maps, Federal Bureau of Investigation or as credited.
