Harold Schechter

Last updated
Harold Schechter
Born (1948-06-28) June 28, 1948 (age 75)
OccupationTrue Crime Writer/Author, Professor Emeritus at Queens College, CUNY.
NationalityAmerican
Education BA, PhD
Alma mater City College of New York, State University of New York
Genre True crime, fiction
Subject Serial killers, popular culture
Spouse Kimiko Hahn
Children2, including Lauren Oliver
Website
haroldschechter.com

Harold Schechter (born June 28, 1948) is an American true crime writer who specializes in serial killers. He is a Professor Emeritus at Queens College, City University of New York where he taught classes in American literature and myth criticism for forty-two years. [1] Schechter's essays have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and the International Herald Tribune. He is the editor of the Library of America volume, True Crime: An American Anthology. His newest book, published in September 2023, is Murderabilia: A History of Crime in 100 Objects. [2]

Contents

Education

Schechter attended the State University of New York at Buffalo where his PhD director was Leslie Fiedler. He is also a 1969 graduate of City College of New York.

Career

Schechter is Professor Emeritus at Queens College, and specializes in American true crime, specifically serial murders of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Using primary sources such as newspaper clippings and court records, he supplies thorough documentation of every case he profiles, while still managing to create compelling narratives and fully fleshed-out characters.

His 2014 book, The Mad Sculptor: The Maniac, the Model, and the Crime that Shook the Nation, was nominated for an Edgar Award in the Best Fact Crime category. [3] In addition to his work as a crime historian, Schechter is the author of an acclaimed series of detective novels based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. [4] Under the pseudonym H. C. Chester, he has also co-written the middle-grade trilogy, Curiosity House, with his daughter, bestselling YA novelist Lauren Oliver. The first book in the series, Curiosity House: The Shrunken Head (2016), was nominated for an Edgar Award in the "Best Juvenile Mystery" category. [5]

In addition to his historical crime books and mystery fiction, Schechter has written extensively on American popular culture. In The Bosom Serpent: Folklore and Popular Art, he explores the relationship between contemporary commercial entertainment and the narrative archetypes of traditional folklore. Savage Pastimes: A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment places the current controversy over media violence in a broad historical context. Examining everything from Victorian murder ballads to the productions of the nineteenth-century Grand Guignol, the book makes the somewhat contrarian argument that today's popular entertainment is actually less violent than the gruesome diversions of the supposedly halcyon past. [4] [6]

In his 1973 article, "Kali on Main Street: The Rise of the Terrible Mother in America", Schechter uses the phrase "horror-porn," which is cited by the Oxford English Dictionary as the first printed appearance of the word "porn" in its now-common figurative meaning: "As the second element in compounds: denoting written or visual material that emphasizes the sensuous or sensational aspects of a non-sexual subject, appealing to its audience in a manner likened to the titillating effect of pornography. [7]

With David Black, Schechter also co-wrote the teleplay for the Season 8 Law & Order episode, “Castoff.” [8]

Praise

Publishers Weekly has called Schechter a "serial killer expert", a "deft writer", praising his ability to recreate "from documentation the thoughts and perspectives of long-dead figures." PW called Schechter's book The Devil's Gentleman "a riveting tale of murder, seduction and tabloid journalism run rampant in New York not so different from today". [9]

Booklist called his book Depraved a "first-rate true crime and first-rate popular history." Writing in the New York Times reviewer James Polk praised Nevermore, the first in Schechter's Poe mystery series, for its "entertaining premise . . . supported by rich period atmospherics."

Personal life

Schechter is married to poet Kimiko Hahn. He has two daughters from a previous marriage: the writer Lauren Oliver, and professor of philosophy Elizabeth Schechter.

Bibliography

True crime

Mystery

Academic works

As H. C. Chester, with Lauren Oliver

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References

  1. "Queens College Emeritus Professors list". Queens College. Retrieved 29 November 2020.
  2. Schechter, Harold (2023). Murderabilia: A History of Crime in 100 Objects. Workman Publishing Company. ISBN   9781523515295.
  3. "Edgar Awards Best Fact Crime list". Edgar Awards. Retrieved 29 November 2020.
  4. 1 2 Mahdi, Louise Carus; Foster, Steven; Little, Meredith (1 January 1987). Betwixt & Between: Patterns of Masculine and Feminine Initiation . Open Court Publishing. p.  67. ISBN   978-0-8126-9048-4.
  5. "Edgar Awards". The Edgar Awards. Archived from the original on 2019-12-23. Retrieved 2020-11-29.
  6. Gilbert, Nathaniel (2006). Democracide: America on the Road to Fascism and Bankruptcy. AuthorHouse. p. 153. ISBN   978-1-4259-5922-7.
  7. Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. September 2020.
  8. "Law and Order Castoff credits". IMDB.
  9. "Nonfiction Book Review: The Devil's Gentleman: Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Century". Publishers Weekly.
  10. Schechter, Harold (2021). Maniac: The Bath School Disaster and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer. Amazon Publishing. ISBN   9781542025317.