Nelson, Leonard

Bestial reads like fast-paced fiction, complete with action, plot twists, suspense, and eerie foreshadowing. The book is compelling and elegantly written, and the story provides chilling insights into the motivations of a man who killed for killing's sake. --Lisa Higgins

FROM SOCIAL OUTCAST TO NECROPHILE AND MURDERER -- HIS APPALLING CRIMES STUNNED AN ERA.

<B>San Francisco, the 1920s.</B> In an age when nightmares were relegated to the fiction of Edgar Allan Poe and distant tales of the Whitechapel murders, a real-life monster terrorized America. His acts of butchery have proved him one of history's fiercest madmen.

As an infant, Earle Leonard Nelson possessed the power to unsettle his elders. As a child he was unnaturally obsessed with the Bible; before he reached puberty, he had an insatiable, aberrant sex drive. By his teens, even Earle's own family had reason to fear him. But no one in the bone-chilling winter of 1926 could have predicted that his degeneracy would erupt in a sixteen-month frenzy of savage rape, barbaric murder, and unimaginable defilement -- deeds that would become the hallmarks of one of the most notorious fiends of the twentieth century, whose blood-lust would not be equaled until the likes of Henry Lee Lucas, John Wayne Gacy, and Jeffrey Dahmer.

Drawing on the "gruesome, awesome, compelling reporting" (Ann Rule) that is his trademark, Harold Schechter takes a dark journey into the mind of an unrepentant sadist -- and brilliantly lays bare the myth of innocence that shrouded a bygone era.

Leonard Nelson's career as a prolific artist and influential art educator spanned more than half the twentieth century, from the thirties to the nineties, and forged lose links with the leading artists and movements of that time in American art history. Although he spent most of his life in Philadelphia, his roots were in New York, and in the works he showed in the forties and fifties at the Betty Parsons and Peridot Galleries, and at Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century during the forties and fifties. They placed him at the forefront of the emerging New York Abstract Expressionist avant-garde. Nelson's artistic and cultural interests were even wider and more challenging than some of his more famous New York colleagues; in his Philadelphia studio he explored avenues as diverse as welded sculpture, incorporating scrap or found objects, and printmaking, a medium that established him among the leading innovators of the day. He also taught at the Moore College of Art in Philadelphia for thirty years, retiring as professor emeritus in 1977, and concentrating on paintings that over the decades underwent a remarkable transformation.

From his pioneering, mid-century figurative studies that are as formidably primitivistic as the early works of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, or the pictographs of Adolph Gottlieb, he progressed to his luminous color-field canvases. By the sixties they had evolved into a highly original and varied color expression often in large scale that broke new ground, presaging some of the later work of Morris Louis and Larry Poons. His work was constantly evolving, in keeping with his openness to novel areas, techniques and mediums. Not long before his death, in 1993, Nelson expressed great pride in his role as an avant-garde force in art education and in his ongoing willingness to cross conventional boundaries, whether in his personal studio work, or in his interdisciplinary approaches and public projects.

Nelson left an extensive body of work in paintings and printmaking, proving how prescient his early vision and stylistic impulses have been, and what a quiet, yet formidable, force he became in the evolution of 20th-century American art.

The reason that this book is even as high as an average read is because there has been very little at all written by Nelson in the past few decades. A cause celebre at the time of the crimes, his reputation has been overwhelmed by more recent killers.

The book itself, though, clearly lacks indepth research. It also has what I consider a major flaw-- making up extended conversations as well as taking us into the mind of the characters. This gives the book a novelistic feel but fails to make it seem more credible.

If you have already read Bestial I would suggest giving this book a look to see how another author handles the same material. I would definitely not suggest that the reader think this to be definitive book about the crimes of Earl Leonard Nelson.

Average customer rating:

A classic with old photographs

Harley's Pediatric Ophthalmology
Leonard B Nelson , and Scott E Olitsky
Manufacturer: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Medicine | Subjects | Books

Ophthalmology | Specialties | Medicine | Subjects | Books

The premier reference on pediatric ophthalmology is now in its thoroughly updated Fifth Edition. More than 40 eminent authorities cover every aspect of pediatric eye care—from genetics through reading disorders—focusing on clinical diagnosis and management. More than 700 illustrations complement the text.

New Fifth Edition chapters cover Neonatal Ophthalmology, Surgical Management of Strabismus, Medicolegal Issues, and Evolution of Strabismus Surgery. All other chapters have been updated to include recent advances in genetics, newly recognized syndromes, and state-of-the-art management protocols.