Compulsion
Subtitle: a novel
By: Meyer Levin ; foreword by Marcia Clark ; introduction by Gabriel Levin
Contributors: Levin, Gabriel, 1948-; Clark, Marcia
Edition: First Fig Tree Books edition.
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 456
ISBN-13: 9781941493021
Copyright date: 1984
Subjects: Murder; Murderers; Fiction
Description: Judd Steiner and Artie Straus have it all: wealth, intelligence, and the world at their feet as part of the elite, upper-crust Jewish community of 1920s Chicago. Artie is handsome, athletic, and popular, but he possesses a hidden, powerful sadistic streak and a desire to dominate. Judd is a weedy introvert, a genius who longs for a companion whom he can idolize and worship. Obsessed with Nietzsche's idea of the superhuman, both boys decide to prove that they are above the laws of man by arbitrarily picking and murdering a Jewish boy in their neighborhood.
Notes: "Based on the Leopold and Loeb case of 1924."