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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
I wanted to like this one but it wasn't what I was expecting. It was more about the families and neighbourhood than the victims and I had trouble keeping track of who each person was. I enjoyed the second half more than the first, but a solid mid overall for me.
I enjoyed the second half of the book more than the first half. I feel like the first half was hard to follow because he jumped around a lot.
Though the names can be hard to keep track of at times, I appreciate that the author includes all the boys as much as possible. He tries not to leave anyyone out. The sheer scope of this book really drives home the point that a murder doesn't only impact the victim - it ripples through a community for generations and impacts hundreds of people. Nelson captures those ripples and also does an excellent job of helping us understand how a thing like this could happen, and how Gacy could fly under the radar for so long. He treats the subject matter with delicacy and respect, and you can tell that the family members and friends he spoke with found talking about their relatives' lives - not just their deaths - very cathartic. What a great way to take power away from a murderer and give it back to the victims' loved ones.
I agree with previous reviewers that the structure was hard to follow. There was a lot of names and relationships to keep straight, and switching between short snippets of the lives of each victim was not helpful to painting one big picture. That said, I enjoyed his writing and I appreciated just *how* victim centered this book was. The last 50 pages were the most captivating and heartbreaking. I would recommend it, with the caveat that you should probably read the first 150 pages with google open to look at pictures of each person.
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