Human inhumanities

Press, 17 December 1988, Page 23

Human inhumanities

The Silence of the Lamb. By Thomas Harris. Heinemann, 1988. 295 pp. $32.95. Small Sacrifices. By Ann Rule. Corgi. 1988. 621 pp. $12.95 (paperback).

(Reviewed by

Ken Strongman)

The study of psychopathic killers has ‘ the revoltingly macabre fascination of close-up film of a female spider eating a male, or a snake swallowing something larger than itself. Whether fiction or nonfiction, whatever the difference is these days, one is compelled to read on in spite of more than a little discomfiture. After all, one is reading about the members of one’s own species, whatever aspects of humanity they might be lacking in. Thomas Harris’s “The Silence of the Lamb” is even more riveting than “Red Dragon,” to which it is the sequel. It continues the fictional saga of Dr Hannibal Lekter, a creative, highly intelligent psychiatrist, whose talents include killing people rather wantonly and eating bits of them. Now in jail, he is being interviewed by a young female F. 8.1. trainee. One of the many results of this is that Lekter escapes and begins another exquisitely vicious rampage. This book may sound nauseating, but the convolutions of its plot and its convincing analysis of extreme and apparently mindless violence (although how can it be mindless with such a brilliant mind behind it?) make

it remarkable. In spite of, or perhaps because of, its embodiment of evil, it nails one to the page. Unfortunately, Ann Rule’s “Small Sacrifices” is non-fiction, and because of this it is the more demanding of these two books. With a ring of authenticity, it tells the story of Diane Downs, who in Oregon in 1983 shot her three young children, killing one, crippling another, and damaging the brain of the third. She took them to a hospital and said they had been shot by another of those all-too-common bearded strangers. In the inexorable and horrifying tradition of “In Cold Blood” and “Beyond Belief,” “Small Sacrifices” examines, probes, and describes the details of Diane Down’s background and experiences and portrays her selfcentred World in which emotions are tools to be used to her ends rather than qualities which add meaning to life. Although at times it is possible to feel sympathy for her, empathy is impossible as the monstrousness of her domination of others, particularly her children, unfolds, especially through the cleverly contrived courtroom scenes. Both of these books are very good value, as long as one can feel interested in inhumanity rather than merely repelled by it. Moreover, between them, they provide yet another example of the arbitrariness of the line between fact and fiction.