I’ve seen the Hitchcock movie, Psycho, maybe twenty times but never felt compelled to find and read the source material, the novel by Robert Bloch. The other day, while browsing at the library, I came across the book on a shelf, facing out, and couldn’t resist. Bloch’s book is just as chilling, but in ways that might surprise. For example, the famous shower scene takes up barely a page, with a final sentence that devastates. On the other hand, the psychological suspense in other sections, especially between Norman and his mother, is riveting. Bloch digs and digs until we know these characters. We understand their desperation and their desperate actions. Much of the psychology is dated and even flawed, but this matters little because this self-encapsulated little world is presented in such convincing detail. What’s also surprising is how faithful the film is to the book, right down to the money stolen at the beginning of the story, though we more fully understand Marion’s motivation in Bloch’s precise rendering. Marion Crane, by the way, is named Mary in the book, though I’m not sure why Hitchcock would have changed that. I understand the Crane part, the bird reference. But why Marion? Short for marionette?
I was fourteen in 1971. The fact that I recall nothing about the uprising at Attica tells you all you need to know about fourteen-year-olds. My only reference point is Al Pacino chanting “Attica” in the movie Dog Day Afternoon. It was an anthem of injustice for him and maybe for our society back then. But that soon changed. And Attica became better known as a place to which the most dangerous prisoners were sent. This is an important book, not only about the uprising itself, but about the system that fostered the riot and then systematically tried to cover up the brutal retaking of the prison, the details of which will enrage you and better help you understand the state of prisons and civil rights today.
Here’s a little background for those who are as clueless as I was before reading this absorbing account. The living conditions at Attica in 1971 were deplorable. If basic human needs had been met, no riot would have ensued. The riot, which was unplanned and more a result of prisoners’ panic over being inadvertently locked in a holding area one morning, led to standoff that lasted four days. Over thirty hostages were held inside the prison, while troopers paced outside, seething with fury. When negotiations broke down, troopers were told to take back the prison by force. Tear gas then incapacitated the prisoners, who were unarmed. This was followed by a barrage of gunfire, about 3000 bullets in all, which killed nearly forty people, ten of them hostages. Not a single bullet needed to be fired for troopers to retake the prison. The retaking was followed by months of torture and indiscriminate punishment, which was followed by decades of cover-up and courtroom battles for justice. The last few chapters focus on the families of the hostages, who were never properly compensated or counseled.
This is a story about injustice, brutality, racism, but it’s also a story about perseverance, recounting the overwhelming obstacles inmates and hostage families had to endure to have their voices heard. This book is a tribute to that perseverance.
This short book of essays, Upstream, by poet Mary Oliver offers a different kind of chill, as in chill out. You’ll find insightful and comforting essays here on building sheds, on watching spiders, on reading Poe and Whitman, on blue pastures and turtles. Oliver makes you feel as if you’re on a walking tour with her through nature, stopping now and then to discuss the books that helped shape her. And through it all, Oliver is fine company.