American Honor Killings: Desire and Rage Among Men
by David McConnell
Akashic Books. 256 pages, $15.95
THE TITLE of this book refers to a type of murder that involves a straight male perpetrator and a gay male victim. But these are not hate crimes in the usual sense (though they may be reported as such in the mass media). They are crimes of passion—or, more accurately, crimes of passionate men who reacted with extreme violence to contact with gay men. Such crimes, argues author David McConnell, are the “remote cousins” of old-fashioned duels. They are “honor” killings in the sense that the perpetrator sees himself as a combatant against a social evil, even as a hero fulfilling a destiny of some kind.
What these portraits collectively reveal is that, for all the recent progress toward GLBT equality, it can still be a rough and tumble world out there in many patches of the American social fabric. Indeed the very visible gains in recent years could even be triggering a backlash in this other America. The Supreme Court rulings striking down DOMA and legalizing same-sex marriage in California are the latest push into unknown territory for American society, with widely varying implications according to class, geography, and culture. Reaction to these rulings from far-right religious groups already indicates that these issues will stay at the forefront for some time.
Far from simple hate crimes, these crimes are seen more as a reaction to this new, evolving reality. Straight men have not only held most of the power—they still do—but they’ve been accustomed to a veil of discretion when it comes to the truth about their private selves, their weaknesses, anatomical features, fears, and foolishness. Open talk about sexuality in general and gay sex in particular threatens to tear away this veil of silence. The killers that McConnell met and interviewed saw themselves, or needed to see themselves, as “believers, soldiers, avengers, purifiers, as exemplars of manhood.”
McConnell combines previously published news reports and court records with his own research and interviews, weaving these accounts in a literary fashion that gives each retelling the feel of a short story. It’s a highly effective technique that captures our attention immediately, bringing us into the minds of these killers as they commit these horrendous acts. McConnell has fashioned these killers’ personalities and belief systems as thoroughly as permitted by the available records, noting where there are gaps because the killer was uncooperative, delusional, or dead. The result is a superbly written and engaging entrée into a cultish world of which most gay readers are probably unaware.
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Christopher Lee Cochran is a writer and librarian based in Washington, D.C.
