“Not only is this book the best sort of true-crime writing, but it is also a stunning exploration of the concept of manhood in America” (Sebastian Junger, New York Times–bestselling author of War). Through six detailed accounts of murders involving gay men, American Honor Killings examines the facts of cases that are too often politicized, sensationalized, or simply ignored. David McConnell researched killings from small-town Alabama to San Quentin’s death row, and here recounts both notorious and lesser-known crimes. We may tend to think these stories involve either the perpetrator’s internal struggle over his own identity or a victim’s fatally miscalculated proposition. They’re almost never that simple. These riveting narratives reveal how different factors played into each case, among them ideas and beliefs about masculinity. Together, they form a secret American history of rage and desire. In each story, victims, murderers, friends, and relatives come breathtakingly alive. The result is a true-crime book of unusual power, depth, and psychological insight—“a journalistic tour de force made all the more impressive by jailhouse interviews” (Publishers Weekly). “A masterpiece of reportage . . . At turns heartbreaking and terrifying . . . If Truman Capote were alive today, he would die of envy. David McConnell has taken the mantle of great American nonfiction writer.” —Evan Wright, author of Generation Kill

Paints a portrait of the killers of several gay men through research and jailhouse interviews, exploring the roots of hatred and sexual violence and claiming that the murders may be considered "honor killings" by their perpetrators.

In the fall of 1931, Thalia Massie, the bored, aristocratic wife of a young naval officer stationed in Honolulu, accused six nonwhite islanders of gang rape. The ensuing trial let loose a storm of racial and sexual hysteria, but the case against the suspects was scant and the trial ended in a hung jury. Outraged, Thalia’s socialite mother arranged the kidnapping and murder of one of the suspects. In the spectacularly publicized trial that followed, Clarence Darrow came to Hawai’i to defend Thalia’s mother, a sorry epitaph to a noble career. It is one of the most sensational criminal cases in American history, Stannard has rendered more than a lurid tale. One hundred and fifty years of oppression came to a head in those sweltering courtrooms. In the face of overwhelming intimidation from a cabal of corrupt military leaders and businessmen, various people involved with the case—the judge, the defense team, the jurors, a newspaper editor, and the accused themselves—refused to be cowed. Their moral courage united the disparate elements of the non-white community and galvanized Hawai’i’s rapid transformation from an oppressive white-run oligarchy to the harmonic, multicultural American state it became. Honor Killing is a great true crime story worthy of Dominick Dunne—both a sensational read and an important work of social history

“Using her deep understanding of self-psychological theory and her own extensive clinical experience, Karen Krett offers us a scholarly yet down-to-earth examination of hope. For too long, hope has been promoted as an unmitigated virtue without any consideration of its dark side. Yet as Krett shows through revealing clinical examples, hope may also impede development and contribute to psychological suffering. Her book serves as a wonderful guide from hope’s dark side to the light.” Doris Brothers, Ph.D., author of Toward a Psychology of Uncertainty: Trauma-Centered Psychoanalysis and Falling Backward: An Exploration of Trust and Self-Experience. Hope saturates the cultural air we breathe: in movies, songs, advertising, political slogans and self-help books. Now, for the first time, Karen Krett, LCSW, is putting “hope” on the therapist’s couch. Krett examines the duality of hope. In childhood, hope can be the emotional glue that keeps us from falling apart, from losing the thread of life. In adulthood, unconscious patterns of hoping for what can never be often interfere with our ability to make good choices in love and work. It may seem as if giving up any hope would mean the end of us, but Krett offers a refreshingly different perspective: by breaking the hold of the dark side of hope, we can become free to direct ourselves toward hopes which can be realized.

Murder in the Name of Honour is Rana Husseini’s hard-hitting and controversial examination of honour crimes. Common in many traditional societies around the world, as well as in migrant communities in Europe and the USA, they involve a ‘punishment’—often death or disfigurement—carried out by a relative to restore the family’s honour. Breaking through the conspiracy of silence surrounding this crime, one writer above all others has been instrumental in bringing it to the world’s attention: Rana Husseini.

Based on original interviews of 22 Muslim-American women of South Asian descent on the topics of honor and honor killings, this book examines honor and culture, and their intersections with power, tradition, gender, family, and religion. Additionally, it incorporates an autoethnographic approach describing the author’s journey to Pakistan to create a personal narrative throughout. This volume offers a unique perspective that allows for informed exploration and description of Muslim-American women’s attitudes and beliefs surrounding the practice of killing women and girls in order to regain family honor.

Honour killing, as it is widely understood, is the cold-blooded murder of a woman or a man involved with her, by the male members of her household in order to cleanse the reputation of the family, clan, community or tribe. This violent tradition in the name of religion, custom and culture continues to be carried out in a significantly large part of the world. The majority of people still believe that honour killings happen for reasons such as marriage from choice or a love affair of a kinswoman, rape, a demand for divorce from a woman, or the birth of a female child, all of which are perceived as bringing shame on the family. However, current research on honour killing suggests that there are a number of intriguing and very cleverly knitted plots of jealousy, greed, violence and murder which show that, in the name of honour, various other purposes are being served and people are killed in ways which give the impression that they are honour killings. By collecting data from people involved in such situations, this book opens a Pandora’s box, showing that such killings are carried out not to assuage the hurt honour of a patriarchal society, but to serve a variety of malign intentions, goals and agendas. It will serve to let the world comprehend the phenomenon of honour-related violence where culture and crime unite under the umbrella of highly discriminating laws against women. This book consists of twenty-six testimonies from those involved in honour killings, bringing together interviews with killers, victims and the falsely accused.