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Boys Enter the House: The Victims of John Wayne Gacy and the Lives They Left Behind
"Here is a work that emphasizes the full view of the lives of those young people that Gacy took. . . . It is essentially the Gacy story in reverse. Victims first."
--Jeff Coen, author of Murder in Canaryville As investigators brought out the bagged remains of several dozen young men from a small Chicago ranch home and paraded them in front of a crowd of TV reporters and spectators, attention quickly turned to the owner of the house. John Gacy was an upstanding citizen, active in local politics and charities, famous for his themed parties and appearances as Pogo the Clown. But in the winter of 1978-79, he became known as one of many so-called "sex murderers" who had begun gaining notoriety in the random brutality of the 1970s. As public interest grew rapidly, victims became footnotes and statistics, lives lost not just to violence, but to history. Through the testimony of siblings, parents, friends, lovers, and other witnesses close to the case, Boys Enter the House retraces the footsteps of these victims as they make their way to the doorstep of the Gacy house itself.
--Jeff Coen, author of Murder in Canaryville As investigators brought out the bagged remains of several dozen young men from a small Chicago ranch home and paraded them in front of a crowd of TV reporters and spectators, attention quickly turned to the owner of the house. John Gacy was an upstanding citizen, active in local politics and charities, famous for his themed parties and appearances as Pogo the Clown. But in the winter of 1978-79, he became known as one of many so-called "sex murderers" who had begun gaining notoriety in the random brutality of the 1970s. As public interest grew rapidly, victims became footnotes and statistics, lives lost not just to violence, but to history. Through the testimony of siblings, parents, friends, lovers, and other witnesses close to the case, Boys Enter the House retraces the footsteps of these victims as they make their way to the doorstep of the Gacy house itself.
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Community Reviews
Poorly written book which does the victims and their stories a disservice. Changed my rating from a four to a two because of how messy this writing is and how difficult it is to follow. It’s going on my DNF shelf even though I would have loved to read about and honor the victims of JWG.
Made me question a lot of things especially as a parent. I know if it was a different time but kids hitchhiking across the country is wild to me! Sad that due to the “taboo” lifestyle these boys led that their disappearances weren’t taken as seriously as they should have. The sheer quantity of missing boys is astounding.
Although I appreciate what the author was trying to do, this book is a jumbled mess. Jumping around from victim to victim definitely did them a disservice as it is hard to keep up with all the victims and their families, friends, and significant others. Eventually, everyone just blends together and you don't remember anything about them or their lives because who am I even reading about right now? I do love that the book is about the victims and not so much about JWG and points out that without all the police negligence and homophobia, JWG would have been caught long before he was able to kill 33 people. I almost quit reading this several times though.
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