Making a Monster

"This is a rich and complex study. If there has been a more thoroughly researched or more effectively contextualized or more perceptive or more illuminating historical case study of an early psychopath or serial killer, I am not aware of it."—Daniel A. Cohen, author of Pillars of Salt, Monuments of Grace: New England Crime Literature and the Origins of American Popular Culture, 1674–1900

"To understand the 'why,' and to illuminate the mystery of Pomeroy the enigmatic child killer, [Keetley] draws on medical, literary, press, criminological, neuroscientific, and social-science sources to interrogate nineteenth-century medical, press, and popular explanations, as well as twenty-first-century theoretical interventions. The social, cultural and gendered meanings of these explanations are also analysed in detail . . . this is a well-written and impressively presented study."—Journal of American Studies

"This is a rich and complex study. If there has been a more thoroughly researched or more effectively contextualized or more perceptive or more illuminating historical case study of an early psychopath or serial killer, I am not aware of it."—Daniel A. Cohen, author of Pillars of Salt, Monuments of Grace: New England Crime Literature and the Origins of American Popular Culture, 1674–1900

"To understand the 'why,' and to illuminate the mystery of Pomeroy the enigmatic child killer, [Keetley] draws on medical, literary, press, criminological, neuroscientific, and social-science sources to interrogate nineteenth-century medical, press, and popular explanations, as well as twenty-first-century theoretical interventions. The social, cultural and gendered meanings of these explanations are also analysed in detail . . . this is a well-written and impressively presented study."—Journal of American Studies