LIFE PLUS 99 YEARS

by ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 6, 1957

The reader of this account of Nathan Leopold's thirty odd years in prison will find out- toward the close- his very natural resentment of Meyer Levin's Compulsion primarily on the grounds that this highly fictional distortion would interfere with his appeal for parole; secondarily that it would absorb the market for this book- on which he had been working for five years. It may however be this reader- or rather the many readers of Compulsion which will create the market here, in spite of the S.E.P. serialization, which will have shortened the sentence (here some 800 pages) for those only casually interested. The book opens- not with the crime itself- to which a return was too painful- but with the investigation just after it was committed- the trial- and the verdict- and it is largely a record of these years behind bars. If Leopold, in spite of his intellectual gifts, doesn't write particularly well- he manages to make most of it very interesting. His friendship with Loeb- who remained unrepentant and untouched by the crime through the years (Leopold was dogged by remorse) continues- although for the first years they were kept in separate institutions-- this was a policy. The first period in Joliet- an old prison with no privileges- was grim, but the transfer to the new and enlightened Stateville brought many satisfactions:- reading and the study of many languages; work in the library; the extension of teaching facilities to other prisoners in courses he instituted-with Dick Loeb- for their benefit; the work on a malaria research project during the war- and the Eye Bank. Dick's death- when he was literally ""cut to ribbons"" by a cellmate, was a great loss; so were the deaths of his father, his favorite Aunt Birdie, and finally his brother. The first parole plea, supported by Warden Ragen, the postponed and denied decisions, and the continuing, sustaining hope that he will soon be freed close the story of what has ultimately proved to be a worthwhile life. But the man who lived it is no closer to the reader than was the boy who committed the crime.

Pub Date: March 6, 1957

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1957

Categories: NONFICTION