COMPULSION (original 1956; edition 1956)

Two eighteen year-old boys, Judd Steiner and Artie Strauss, are both brilliant, having graduated from the University of Chicago already. They are the sons of millionaires and live a life of luxury as neighbors in a wealthy section of Chicago. Artie is one of the most popular boys on campus and has a reputation with the girls. Many see his relationship with Judd as one of pity for the small, weird boy who no one else likes.
When the young son of another neighbor, also a millionaire, is found stuffed in a drainage pipe, Artie can't stop himself from taking part in the investigation. He leads newspaper reporters to the clues, even blurts out how he would have done it. He knows everything because he and Judd committed the murder. The arrest and trial of the two boys reveals their bizarre relationship and the fact that they murdered for no other reason than to have the experience and get away with it.

This is an account of the Leopold and Loeb murder case of the 1920's, when two wealthy boys murdered another local boy. They were defended by Clarence Darrow, represented here as the character of Jonathan Wilk. There is much delving into the sick minds of the murderers, a lot of psychology, philosophy and some surprisingly graphic language and images, considering this book was written in 1956. I like that Levin wrote from the perspective of Sid Silver, a classmate of the killers and cub reporter to one of the major newspapers. The book has a tone of both sympathy for the waste of three lives while giving the honest facts of the callousness of the behavior of the murderers. ( )

Just finished reading this book yesterday and was impressed by the large bulk of detail provided by the author. Given that he was a journalist and had to work quickly to write each article for a deadlne at the paper, I find it impressive how he could switch gears and work by contrast on a very long work such as this.
As with other books that I have reviewed such as All the President's Men and Lenin, The Novel, I realize that there is another challenge involved, in addition to the length, and that is, how to make the transition from a journalistic style to a novelistic style, whatever that is.
I would now like to proceed to looking up what other books this author may have written and also see some of the actual newspaper archives of that era in Chicago about Leopold and Loeb.

3023 Compulsion, by Meyer Levin (read 17 Oct 1997) This novel is based very closely on the Leopold-Loeb murder of Bobby Franks in 1924. The names are changed, but otherwise it is nearly verbatim. This book is very good on the events leading to the crime and after it up through the time they confess. Then the book drags some since there is so much psychiatric discussion. But the trial is good when the summing up is set out--Darrow's speech is a masterpiece. A very worth while book to read. ( )

http://www.phebus-editions.com/pres_livre.php?id=530 ( )