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The Avenue of the Giants by Marc Dugain (Translation by Howard Curtis)
Requirements: ePUB Reader, 1.2MB | Retail
Overview: —French author Marc Dugain published a novel, Avenue des géants (Avenue of the Giants), about Edmund Kemper in 2012.
Avenue of the Giants follows Al Kenner as he progresses from antisocial adolescent to full-fledged serial killer in the turbulent '60s and '70s. A giant at over 7 feet tall with an IQ higher than Einstein's, Al was never ordinary. His life is tainted by his parents' divorce and his mother's abusive behavior, and it takes a chilling turn on the day of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Al spends 5 years in a psychiatric hospital, and although he convinces the staff that he is of sound mind, he continues to harbor vicious impulses. Al leads a double life, befriending the Santa Cruz Police Chief and contemplating marrying his daughter, all the while committing a series of brutal murders. Delving into the mind of this complex killer, Marc Dugain powerfully evokes an America torn between the pacifism of the hippie movement and the violence of Vietnam.
—Based upon the life story of serial killer Edmund Kemper, 'The Avenue of the Giants' is firmly in the realm of fiction - all names, and quite a few significant details, have been changed by the author. That said, had I not had at least some familiarity with the Kemper case going in, I wouldn't have known the difference. This is one of the most true-to-life novels I've read in some time, and the fact that it was written by a contemporary French author, while being set in 60's Northern California, makes its sense of realism all the more impressive. Derived from actual events or not, the suspension of disbelief which the narrative allows, makes it a hugely enjoyable and engrossing read. Dugain's prose is both as elegant and as simple as it needs to be, and the language of the story virtually never hits a wrong note - Howard Curtis's translation deserves a lot of credit as well.
As a narrator, Al Kenner isn't unreliable so much as deceptively straightforward, lulling the reader into trusting him just as he manages to deceive those around him, most of all his "fiancee" Wendy and her police officer father. With the exception of Kenner's first (his grandparents) and final (his mother and her best friend) murders, he declines to dwell on or even describe his infamous crimes, but it's this very lack of explicit detail which makes the ending reveal/confession far more shocking. Of course you've known, or at least suspected, all along what the character has done, but when he spells it out in his own words to his potential father-in-law, the impact of the preceding 300-odd pages hits with full force.
'Avenue of the Giants' serves as both a page-turner and a more serious work of literature, blending the two in impressively seamless fashion. Its fictional - albeit truth-based - world is both fully realized and utterly convincing, and as a contemporary novel it deserves the highest praise.
Genre: Fiction | Mystery/Thriller
Download Instructions:
http://up-4ever.org/d/Alv8
https://userscloud.com/erlcyrfswvfv
Requirements: ePUB Reader, 1.2MB | Retail
Overview: —French author Marc Dugain published a novel, Avenue des géants (Avenue of the Giants), about Edmund Kemper in 2012.
Avenue of the Giants follows Al Kenner as he progresses from antisocial adolescent to full-fledged serial killer in the turbulent '60s and '70s. A giant at over 7 feet tall with an IQ higher than Einstein's, Al was never ordinary. His life is tainted by his parents' divorce and his mother's abusive behavior, and it takes a chilling turn on the day of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Al spends 5 years in a psychiatric hospital, and although he convinces the staff that he is of sound mind, he continues to harbor vicious impulses. Al leads a double life, befriending the Santa Cruz Police Chief and contemplating marrying his daughter, all the while committing a series of brutal murders. Delving into the mind of this complex killer, Marc Dugain powerfully evokes an America torn between the pacifism of the hippie movement and the violence of Vietnam.
—Based upon the life story of serial killer Edmund Kemper, 'The Avenue of the Giants' is firmly in the realm of fiction - all names, and quite a few significant details, have been changed by the author. That said, had I not had at least some familiarity with the Kemper case going in, I wouldn't have known the difference. This is one of the most true-to-life novels I've read in some time, and the fact that it was written by a contemporary French author, while being set in 60's Northern California, makes its sense of realism all the more impressive. Derived from actual events or not, the suspension of disbelief which the narrative allows, makes it a hugely enjoyable and engrossing read. Dugain's prose is both as elegant and as simple as it needs to be, and the language of the story virtually never hits a wrong note - Howard Curtis's translation deserves a lot of credit as well.
As a narrator, Al Kenner isn't unreliable so much as deceptively straightforward, lulling the reader into trusting him just as he manages to deceive those around him, most of all his "fiancee" Wendy and her police officer father. With the exception of Kenner's first (his grandparents) and final (his mother and her best friend) murders, he declines to dwell on or even describe his infamous crimes, but it's this very lack of explicit detail which makes the ending reveal/confession far more shocking. Of course you've known, or at least suspected, all along what the character has done, but when he spells it out in his own words to his potential father-in-law, the impact of the preceding 300-odd pages hits with full force.
'Avenue of the Giants' serves as both a page-turner and a more serious work of literature, blending the two in impressively seamless fashion. Its fictional - albeit truth-based - world is both fully realized and utterly convincing, and as a contemporary novel it deserves the highest praise.
Genre: Fiction | Mystery/Thriller
Download Instructions:
http://up-4ever.org/d/Alv8
https://userscloud.com/erlcyrfswvfv
