Title: Been a heavy life : stories of violent men /
Authors: Presser, Lois.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press,
Year: 2008
Subjects: Violence in men.; Abusive men.; Criminal behavior.
Abstract: Investigates the life stories of men who have perpetrated violence. Presser applies insights from across the academy to in-depth interviews with men who shared their accounts of how they became the people we most fear--those who rape, murder, assault, and rob, often repeatedly. She provides the discipline of criminology with two crucial frameworks: one for critically evaluating the construction of offenders’ own stories, and one for grasping the cultural meta-narratives that legitimize violence. From publisher description.
Contents: Self and story -- Offender identities, offender narratives -- Thinking about research effects -- Research methods when research is being researched -- Reform narratives : return of the good self -- Stability narratives : never a bad self -- Elastic narratives : creative integration -- Tales of heroic struggle -- The situated construction of narratives -- The power of stories.