The Stranger Beside Me (Revised and Updated): 20th Anniversary
by Ann Rule
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Book Summary Information
Author: Ann RuleEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2001-06-01
ISBN: 0451203267
Number of pages: 560
Publisher: Signet
Book Reviews of The Stranger Beside Me (Revised and Updated): 20th Anniversary
Book Review: The Goldmine Beside Me...
Summary: 3 Stars
If this is the 'definitive' book on either true crime or serial killer Ted Bundy, then I find that to be pretty sad. Simply put, Ann Rule is not a good writer. Her prose borders on being cheesy and melodramatic. I appreciate the additional background information given on the victims, but Rule's prose is syrupy and almost comes across as mocking. Ex: "...when he got wind of her letter, he learned Janice had indeed expired" or "There was always tomorrow. Only there wasn't. There were no more tomorrows for Julie Cunningham..." Surely there must be more tactful ways to describe someone's death.
One problem with the "The Stranger Beside Me" is it cannot decide if it wants to be memoir or biography. One senses Rule's relationship with Ted is played up a bit, and in that case, the book would have served better as a biography. There is too much information revealed about Ann Rule's life that is irrelevant to Ted Bundy. Yet the biggest problem with "The Stranger Beside Me" is how Rule presents theories as facts, when in reality it is nothing more than personal speculation. Besides the Devine murder, other information in this book has been proven completely inaccurate. One is Rule's theory that Margaret Bowman was Ted's designated victim on the night of the Chi Omega attacks simply because she was a brunette. Bundy actually planned on attacking Cheryl Thomas on Dunwoody street first, but since she wasn't home he went to the Chi Omega house. As for Margaret being his first victim, evidence reveals that Lisa Levy was attacked first. More alarmingly, she has Ted admitting to murders he never confessed to. Did he really commit these murders anyway? We don't know, but it's wrong to print that he confessed when further research states the opposite. Melanie Cooley's murder is now classified as a cold case, and according to "The Only Living Witness", Ted claimed to have killed only three women in Colorado. Rule also mixes up two Utah victims: Nancy Baird and Sue Curtis. He confessed to Sue Curtis's murder not Nancy Baird's. There are other minor errors that are insignificant, but because there are so many of them, Rule's credibility is further brought into question. Georgeann Hawkins is described as having brown hair, and then in the 2008 update she is suddenly a blonde. Liz Kloepfer's fake surname is 'Kendall' but Rule fudges up her last name as 'Kenyon' in the 2008 update. Chi Omega victim Kathy Kleiner is called 'Kathy Meiner' at one point.
The moral of the story is one can't believe everything they read in one single book. In the case of people who become famous or infamous, there are always personal theories that get swept in as fact. The truth is out there, but sometimes you have to dig for it.
Summary of The Stranger Beside Me (Revised and Updated): 20th Anniversary
Ann Rule was a writer working on the biggest story of her life, tracking down a brutal mass-murderer. Little did she know that Ted Bundy, her close friend, was the savage slayer she was hunting.The most fascinating killer in modern American history...Ann Rule has an extraordinary angle that makes The Stranger Beside Me as dramatic and chilling as a bedroom window shattering at midnight. (The New York Times)
Overwhelming. (The Houston Post)
A shattering story...carefully investigated, written with compassion but also with professional objectivity. (Seattle Times)
Not long ago, true crime writer Ann Rule recalls lying on an operating table. The anesthesiologist leaned over before putting her to sleep. "Ann," the anesthesiologist said softly, "tell me, what was Ted Bundy really like?" Despite meeting Florida's electric chair in 1989, the subject of Rule's bestselling book continues to haunt her. Rule and Bundy were friends. They met in 1971 at a Seattle crisis clinic, where they shared the late shift answering a suicide hotline. Their subsequent conversations, meetings, and letters spanned the rest of Bundy's life as he evolved into one of the century's most notorious serial killers. It's been 20 years since Rule first penned this chilling account. But the story--and her 2000 update--will still have readers reaching for their Xanax. No gratuitous gore here; just the basic, bone-chilling evidence. In fact, like a protective mother shielding us from horrors too awful to mention, Rule seems to avoid delving too deeply into crime scene descriptions. She devotes one paragraph in her new afterword to her discovery that Bundy engaged in necrophilia and returned to the scenes of his crimes to "line dead lips and eyes with garish makeup and to put blush on pale cheeks." She tells readers that John Hinckley, who shot Ronald Reagan, and David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam Killer, traded prison correspondences with Bundy. And she hints that Bundy's insatiable killer instincts may have started when he was a 14-year-old paperboy. (Ann Marie Burr, an 8-year-old girl on his route, mysteriously disappeared in the middle of the night and has never been found.) The skimpy update is over too soon, leaving readers wanting more and offering further proof of the public's never-ending fascination with serial killers. --Jodi Mailander Farrell
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