An Absolute Gentleman

In R.M. Kinder's debut novel, the secret life of Arthur Blume goes far beyond anything (hopefully) your creative writing teacher ever led. He's a serial killer, one with a career as a failed novelist and a penchant for sleeping with his students, fellow teachers, and the odd victim. In everything, though, he is an absolute gentleman as described in the title.
The strength of the book is the way the author weaves reality into the insanity that's bubbling beneath the surface of her narrator's mind. Going back and forth in time between his experiences with his really sick mother to his present-day affair with a fellow professor with secrets of her own, Kinder takes you into the surprisingly under-wrought consciousness of a serial killer. show more
The book builds to a satisfying climax, with ever-mounting tension and just enough clues to let the small town cop catch the bad guy. show less

Arthur Blume is a middle-aged creative writing professor with only one published novel to his name. His search for tenure brings him to a small university in Missouri where he teaches writing courses while caught in a fruitless cycle of editing and submitting his own novel manuscript. He navigates inter-office politics, works to gain the respect of his students, decorates his apartment in thrift-shop Victoriana, undertakes a romantic affair with a fellow professor, and champions the cause of an elderly woman, Nada, who is a student and works as an underpaid assistant to the professors but receives no respect or acknowledgment. In every way, Blume projects the outward appearance of a bookish, entirely harmless, middle-aged bachelor.

And show more yet, as Blume narrates his own story, these mundane daily activities are interspersed with childhood memories of being raised by a single mother whose episodes of psychotic delusions left her inventively cruel and frequently neglectful, of experimenting with the torture and killing of small animals, and of finding his only stable and reliable support-systems in other males and father figures. Even more chilling are Blume’s adult recollections of tracking down and killing various women who had in some way offended males of his acquaintance, often years after the fact. He is a strangely dispassionate observer of his own life, offering succinct insights into the personalities of the women around him—though such insights are skewed by his own misogynistic perspective. Critical of the barbarism of other serial killers, Blume is proud that he has never “soiled his own nest,” going instead far afield for his hunts—until one icy day, when the beast rose up and couldn’t be denied.

Low-key and subtle, this absorbing study of the mind of a serial killer proves that the most ordinary of people can nevertheless harbor a monster within. You will never look at your quiet, harmless neighbor quite the same way again. show less

"Three years after my mother's surgery, I returned home to spend the summer. I know that seems odd, since I wasn't exactly happy around her, but I wasn't very happy anywhere else, either. Sometimes people or problems get embedded in your head and you worry them like a dog with a bone. You feel that just one more visit, one more look, one more word, and you'll understand something that will enable you to slough off the bad feeling and get on with your life. I imagine that's why people stalk one another, bombard others with letters or phone calls, bash in windows, doors, heads. They want to understand. They need closure. They can't believe that the slight sour taste is all there is. Like the crazy monkey mother from the special I watched show more long ago, they think this baby will nurse if it's just shaken around a bit."

--R.M. Kinder, An Absolute Gentleman

Arthur Bloom hasn't published a novel since his grad school days and now, in his early fifties, he's revising what he hopes will be his second and hoping for the tenure track as he moves to a small midwestern town. He's not the type who makes friends, but he's hoping for acceptance.

Arthur Bloom is a serial killer. He has the requisite messed up childhood, an interest in deviant behavior in nature, and an unusual, but to him totally logical way of explaining away the side of himself that's so distasteful to others. He's no monster, he tells us right away; just a boring observer. Nothing's really his fault.

Arthur Bloom kept me up late at night. Kinder based his character on that of serial killer Robert Weeks, a man she'd dated and who she continued to visit in prison (she provides an aferward on writing Arthur Bloom). Jen Clair reviewed An Absolute Gentleman a couple weeks back and Bybee mentioned in comments that she knows the author from grad school. Even if you swore off true crime books years ago as I did, you'll want to grant yourself a pass to read this novel. show less

This is the chilling story of a serial killer told in the first-person by the murderer, who is outwardly a pleasant Creative Writing professor in a small midwestern college. His history with his mother is told in enough detail that we understand why he is both attracted to and repulsed by women. There is a haunting, vacant quality to his interactions with colleagues and students, and the suspense builds to a crescendo of violence that is unimaginably evil.

This character is based on a real-life serial murderer known to the author, which adds to the horrible knowledge that these damaged minds do truly exist and live among us in various guises. I was reminded of the dawning knowledge among Ted Bundy's friends when the range and depth of show more his murders were known. show less

Kinder creates a remarkable, consistent, compelling voice here . . . until the very end where things fall apart a bit--where the narrator's rationalizations seem utterly out of character. Maybe there's some sense to why this is so, but the book closes rather too quickly to bring that sense of things home to the reader. Generally very fine, though. Even drops a (very appropriate) reference to John Gardner's Grendel.

Originally posted on http://j-kaye-book-blog.blogspot.com/

Arthur Blume, published author, teaches creative writing in Mason, Missouri. He’s been convicted of murdering one of his students. The public has painted him and his mother monsters. In his memoir, he intends to rectify this misconception.

Arthur narrates his life, not in sequential order, but by alternating between his Missouri present and his Georgian past. As I read about his life, I found myself forgetting this was a work of fiction. It felt so unbelievably real.

R. M. Kinder, a masterful story weaver, gives readers penetrating insight into a serial killer’s psyche. Throughout the book, I wondered if this is how neighbors and church members saw Dennis Rader, the BTK killer. show more From there, I wondered how well I know my own neighbors.

“An Absolute Gentleman” by R. M. Kinder is first novel that is loosely based on the author’s real-life relationship with a convicted murderer. As I read the last few paragraphs of the book, goose bumps formed on my arms. What a chilling ending!

This book is without a doubt, one of the best thrillers I’ve read this year. It’s Oh-My-God good!


Note: All reviews posted here are followed by a book raffle at http://j-kaye-book-blog.blogspot.com/. show less

An Absolute Gentleman is an immensely enjoyable read. I did not find a single dull moment in it, unlike scores of books of popular authors who fill up pages of irrelevant and boring info inorder to have a 300 plus pages book.
The way the author has the protagonist (the narrator himself) analyze the personalities of the characters adds to his charming personality, a seemingly harmless and amiable, intelligent though shrewd man. How his relationship with his mother is shown to cause him to become a coldhearted murderer, is very effective.
I like to read books of female authors who make the protagonist narrator male and vice versa, to see if they do justice to the opposite sex.
In one place the narrator notices the girl wearing little or show more no mascara that I found to be unrealistic, unless his mother had worn makeup or if he had grown up with sisters but he had not.unless a guy is effeminately inclined. or he says at another place she wore a mesh bracelet. men do not notice women's jewelry in so much detail. but these are unimportant bits.in all the book is very well written. show less