Kitty Genovese : the murder, the bystanders, the crime that changed America

Title:

Kitty Genovese : the murder, the bystanders, the crime that changed America

Author:

Cook, Kevin, 1956-

Edition:

First edition.

Publication Date:

2014

Physical Description:

242 p. : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Contents:

More than a name -- Opposites -- Garden suburb -- Tigers and ants -- Village people -- She loves you -- Ozone park -- The 11th hour -- Night of the hunt -- Postmortem -- Neighbors -- Confessions -- Pleas -- Questions for the devil -- Consequences -- Calling for help -- Jailbreak -- The uses of memory -- Case studies -- Revisions -- Thirty-six minutes.

Subject:

Murder victims -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography.

Murder -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography.

Witnesses -- New York (State) -- New York.

Police -- New York (State) -- New York

Personal Subject:

Genovese, Kitty, 1935-1964

Language:

English

ISBN:

9780393239287

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Summary

In 1964 a woman was stabbed to death in front of her home in New York, a murder The New York Times called "a frozen moment of dramatic, disturbing social change". The victim, Catherine "Kitty" Genovese, became an urban martyr, butchered in sight of thirty-eight neighbours who "didn't want to get involved". Her sensational case provoked an outcry and launched a sociological theory known as the "Bystander Effect". On the fiftieth anniversary of her murder, Kevin Cook presents the real Genovese. "Gripping" (The New York Times) and "Provocative" (The Wall Street Journal), Kitty Genovese evokes the gay and lesbian underground of Greenwich Village with feeling and detail. Cook reconstructs the crime, and drawing on lost documents and new interviews, explores the legacy of the case. His account of what happened is the most accurate and chilling to date.

Author Notes

A former senior editor at Sports Illustrated, Kevin Cook is the author of Titanic Thompson, Tommy's Honor, Kitty Genovese and The Dad Report. He lives in New York City.

Reviews (5)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In his latest book, Cook (Titanic Thompson) disproves the popular belief about the 1964 murder of Catherine "Kitty" Genovese in Kew Gardens, Queens-that 38 neighbors watched her being stabbed to death from the safety of their apartment windows, and did nothing to help, a phenomenon dubbed the "Bystander Effect" by social scientists. One neighbor did call the police immediately, but the notion that so many failed to respond struck a nerve, bolstered by the New York Times' coverage, and Times editor A.M. Rosenthal's book Thirty-Eight Witnesses. The ensuing clamor led to the creation of the 911 emergency phone system, "Good Samaritan" laws, and the development of the field of pro-social behavior-designed to turn bad neighbors into good ones. Cook never loses sight of the victim, tracing the arc of Genovese's 27 years of life, and presenting the memories of her partner, Mary Ann Zielonko. Cook also offers a nuanced rendering of Genovese's murderer, Winston Moseley, with ample details of his trial. In an especially moving section, Cook notes the chance elements that put Genovese in harm's way. As much social history as true crime, this is an insightful probe into the notorious case, 50 years later. 16 pages of photos. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

In the wake of the Kennedy assassination, as America was losing its 1950s innocence and beginning to confront the darker recesses of human behavior, another heinous crime brought the nation's changing culture into grim focus. In the middle of the night on a dark New York City street, young Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death, her cries for help falling on deaf ears. If any story could be said to go viral in those pre-Internet, pre-24/7-cable-news-cycle days, Genovese's murder captured the world's attention to an astonishing degree. Headlines of her neighbors' indifference were as dramatic as those heralding the crime itself. Touted in death as the innocent girl-next-door, Genovese actually wasn't anything like the portrait painted in fawning newspaper stories, nor was the outrageous apathy of countless witnesses as coldhearted or ubiquitous as the press luridly described. On the fiftieth anniversary of the murder, Cook revisits that tumultuous era and an unspeakable crime that became synonymous with urban indolence and dispassion.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2014 Booklist

New York Review of Books Review

Just before the 1964 World's Fair opened, a vivacious young bar manager, Catherine (Kitty) Genovese, was viciously raped and murdered in the middle of the night in Kew Gardens, Queens. Some neighbors, awakened by her calls for help, came to their windows but were left with the impression that Genovese had walked away from the scene unharmed. Others assumed someone else had called the police. A.M. Rosenthal, then the metropolitan editor of The New York Times, recognized the resonance of this Bad Samaritan parable and assigned a reporter to look into it. The resulting Page 1 article began: "For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman." The story was picked up by newspapers around the world and led to decades of soul-searching. Rosenthal himself went on to write a book, "Thirty-Eight Witnesses," about the crime. In his dismantling of this much-mythologized newspaper account, Cook confirms, not for the first time, that The Times's 1964 version was inaccurate. (The Times itself published a piece a decade ago correcting the 38-witnesses figure and other errors.) Cook's harping on the number 38 is perhaps too dramatic for the arithmetical payoff. Whether it was 38 or many fewer, a robust number of witnesses failed to help Genovese. Still, this book has a suspenseful edge. Through interviews with her lesbian partner and others, Cook humanizes the victim. Equally gripping is his follow-up on Winston Moseley, the killer who was convicted, escaped from prison and raped again.

Kirkus Review

The infamous myth-shrouded murder of Kitty Genovese (19351964) receives a much-needed re-evaluation. The brutal, senseless murder of Kew Gardens resident Genovese went down in history as what magazine journalist and Cook (Titanic Thompson: The Man Who Bet on Everything, 2010, etc.) calls a "crime that lasted forever." It lasted "forever" both in the sense that Genovese's death was slow and painful from multiple stab wounds and in the psychological repercussions of the case, which would reverberate throughout academic and popular-culture circles for decades to come. The controversy that became front-page news and began to overshadow both victim and killer over the years was how 38 bystanders could have witnessed psychopath Winston Moseley stab young Genovese to death and not intervene in any way, thereby leaving her to die alone only a short walking distance from her apartment. Cook's main agenda is myth-busting while also exploring the ways in which society has collectively learned lessons from those same myths about the 38 passive bystanders. But as we find out through Cook's prolonged analysis of the case, Genovese's murder was not quite the lonely death it was made out to be. Nevertheless, the author cites instances of how both criminals and victims of crimes learned from these long-perpetuated "bystander" untruths, as he eventually arrives at some well-founded conclusions on this controversial subject. Cook's breathless pacing and painstaking research manage to make his minibio of Genovese sound more interesting that it should: He frames her own fairly quotidian existence (other than her attraction to women, which was definitely not quotidian in 1964) in the bigger picture of the important social changes that were taking place in New York City and in America as a whole in the early 1960s. The author's game-changing contribution to the Genovese case pushes past mere sensationalism into previously unexplored territory. An engrossing true-crime tour de force.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Library Journal Review

Most people would cite the story of Kitty Genovese (a young woman who was fatally stabbed in 1964 in Kew Gardens, NY) as the most infamous example of the bystander effect, or the psychological phenomenon that explains that individuals are less likely to offer help to those in need when they perceive others to be present. However, on the 50th anniversary of the murder, Cook (Titanic Thompson; Tommy's Honor) reconsiders the case, concluding that erroneous reporting by the New York Times led to the accepted belief that 38 of Genovese's neighbors heard her cries and refused to respond, when in fact the truth was much more complex. The author successfully infuses new life into a case that many know primarily as a brief chapter from introductory psychology textbooks, fleshing out Genovese and relying upon historical details and heavy use of dialog to add further color. Though this is a well-researched account of a crime, more important, it's a nuanced examination of the cultural significance of Genovese's slaying and its legacy. VERDICT True crime aficionados, sociology and psychology students, and anyone with an interest in untold stories will enjoy Cook's thought-provoking revelations.-Mahnaz Dar, School Library Journal (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Prologue	p. 1
1 More Than a Name	p. 3
2 Opposites	p. 11
3 Garden Suburb	p. 23
4 Tigers and Ants	p. 31
5 Village People	p. 38
6 She Loves You	p. 51
7 Ozone Park	p. 58
8 The 11th Hour	p. 66
9 Night of the Hunt	p. 75
10 Postmortem	p. 81
11 Neighbors	p. 95
12 Confessions	p. 110
13 Pleas	p. 120
14 Questions for the Devil	p. 136
15 Consequences	p. 151
16 Calling for Help	p. 164
17 Jailbreak	p. 173
18 Memory and Myth	p. 184
19 Case Studies	p. 196
20 Revisions	p. 204
21 Thirty-Three Minutes	p. 212
Acknowledgments	p. 221
A Note on Sources	p. 225
Select Bibliography	p. 227
Index	p. 229

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Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (5)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Booklist Review

New York Review of Books Review

Kirkus Review

Library Journal Review

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