Compulsion
By: by Meyer Levin
Contributors: Levin, Eli, 1938-
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 1956
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 495
Subjects: 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: IUA14733: Gift of Jo Basiste (a.k.a. Eli Levin); inscription in black ink on recto of front fly-leaf "Bertha Mayer"; copy's dust jacket fragments removed to item folder.