If you enjoy the show Mind Hunter—
Taking as his text Georges Bataille’s insight that “only at the extremes is there freedom,” critically acclaimed “guerrilla writer” Harold Jaffe documents Bataille’s aperçu with 15 bone-chilling illustrations. Manson, Starkweather, Speck, Son of Sam, the Night Stalker, Aileen Wuornos, the Unabomber, Dahmer, Bundy, Gacy, Kemper, Kevorkian and Kissinger are not merely present and accounted for, they are rendered into a “reality TV” that you’ve never seen before.
Widely praised as a virtuoso stylist, Jaffe employs a number of narrative stratagems, such as letters, monologues, interviews and “unsituated dialogues” to torque the flattened, cartoon-like serial killers into a potently unnerving third dimension.
As in False Positive, Straight Razor, Eros Anti-Eros and Sex for the Millennium, Jaffe’s “docufictions” are at the same time lucid, intricate, gruesome, infinitely sad, and hilarious. At the end we are left with a profoundly incisive commentary on America’s insatiable consumption of extremity, conveniently masked as moral condemnation.
“As in previous works by Jaffe, 15 Serial Killers looks at serial killers through a unique point of view that resists glamorization, and it is effective at reaching deeply into the hic et nuc of the situation…one cannot but admire Jaffe’s courage (and gall) in using these notorious figures as the inspiration for “docufiction.” The potential of ‘docufiction’ is philosophically and narratologically rich.” —American Book Review
“Certain parts of the book had me wondering if he was actually there, hanging out with the killers, sharing a six-pack with them, and watching the way they tore their victims apart. 15 Serial Killers is a flashback into America’s horrid past, delightfully written so the reader can relate to the fifteen psychopaths Jaffe describes, and sometimes becomes.” —Stephanie Simpson-Woods, The Midwest Book Review

15 Serial Killers: Docufictions

Literature & Fiction

Jaffe, Professor Harold

Short Stories & Anthologies

Raw Dog Screaming Press

These 50-word stories are based on "found" texts from mainstream news sources and other public sites. Jaffe sculpts them to reveal their inner core, all niceties stripped away. Now the true motives, fears and sins of our age are on display for all who care to see. Amidst an internet-driven content boom, meaning has virtually disappeared. ANTI-TWITTER's extreme brevity demonstrates by example that brief need not = dumbed-down. Though the stories describe a wide arc: high and pop culture, intimate and public, sordid and exalted, all subjects are equally laid bare by Jaffe's incisive stratagems.

Anti-Twitter: 150 50-Word Stories

Literary

In this timely collection of essays and "quasi-essays," acclaimed novelist and critic Harold Jaffe explores the intricate vicissitudes of millennial culture. Gesturing, in a philosophical shorthand, toward a kind of pop Armageddon, Revolutionary Brain is at once thesis, allegory, and surreal comedy, demonstrating just how far we, and the natural world we have debased, have fallen. Obsessed with technology, we are incapable of reconstructing ourselves. By way of Jaffe's elegant prose and perfect pitch, our collective disability is laid bare at the 11th hour. REVOLUTIONARY BRAIN is a powerful cry for a brave new aesthetics that turns towards, not away, from our tormented globe.

Revolutionary Brain

Essays & Correspondence

Guide Dog Books

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Books by Jaffe, Professor Harold