Review: A well written exploration of a little known event.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 8, 2014
On the surface "Eddie and the Gun Girl" seems to be a bizarre and unfortunate incident of celebrity obsession, but more than that, it was later recognized to be the first occurrence of the modern day era of violent stalkers.The book recounts the events around former baseball star Eddie Waitkus who was shot by mentally unstable Ruth Steinhagen in 1949.Even though the story is fairly short, it is well researched and written in an engaging manor. I don't think it needed to be any longer either. The events of the shooting, leading up to, during and after are clearly presented. The lives and personalities of Eddie and Ruth are explored without judgment. And the conclusions made about the incident are objective and well founded.It's an unfortunate tale but the real tragedy lies in the naivete and innocence of society. No one recognized the full extent and seriousness of Ruth's condition, and the blase manor the baseball teams took towards these over-exuberant groupies.While it was an interesting and little known event in history, it was sad to read, and certainly a cautionary tale on the disregard of mental illness and the unhealthy levels of celebrity worship. But not all was dark, because there was an aspect of forgiveness on the part of the victim and his family, which did cast a ray of light into the events.I enjoyed this short trip through history, recommend it, and will read more by Mr. Kram.