Compulsion

An "acclaimed roman a clef" that "holds up as a landmark legal thriller." -- Publishers Weekly "Meyer Levin's astonishingly good novel...As psychological thriller and as courtroom drama, [Compulsion] has few peers; it ascends to a Dostoyevskian level." -- Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal "In many ways, Compulsion is a period piece, but its ability to communicate the horror of this famous crime gives it a lasting power." -- Adam Kirsch, Tablet Magazine An "unforgettable, heart-wrenching story of murder." -- Mary Lignor, Suspense Magazine "Paying close attention to historical detail, Compulsion is a deftly crafted novel that documents author Meyer Levin as a particularly gifted storyteller that will keep his readers total engaged from beginning to end." -- Midwest Book Review "Nearly a century after this 'crime of the century,' Levin's tale -- in this new edition, with a foreword by O.J. prosecutor-turned-novelist Marcia Clark -- is no less gripping or disturbing." -- JTA Praise for Meyer Levin's Compulsion: "Before In Cold Blood, before The Executioner's Song, Meyer Levin's Compulsion was the standard-bearer for what we think of as the nonfiction novel...Though this trial took place in 1924, the book raises issues pertaining to society and our justice system--such as popular biases, groupthink, and the inherent, perhaps unfixable, flaws in our legal system--that are as much in evidence today as they were back then." -- Marcia Clark (from the foreword) "If only for its rightful place in American literary history, Compulsion is worth reprinting. But it is also valuable because of its author's novelistic gifts--a convincing portrait of two brilliant psychopaths, a narrative capacity for a spellbinding tale, an authentic depiction of the 1920s Chicago moral and political landscape. Compulsion is a credible portrait of an era, and an early example of an infamous crime turned into compelling fiction." -- Alan Lelchuk, author of American Mischief "Though Truman Capote claimed to have invented a new literary genre with In Cold Blood--a form he called the 'nonfiction novel'--that distinction truly belongs to Meyer Levin. For nearly a century now, the Leopold and Loeb case has maintained a firm hold on the popular imagination, generating histories, movies, stage dramas, even musicals and comic books. Of this seemingly endless stream of retellings, Levin's lightly fictionalized masterpiece--so true to reality that Leopold himself famously sued the author--remains the most gripping, psychologically penetrating, and purely readable account of one of America's most sensational crimes." -- Harold Schechter, author of The Mad Sculptor: The Maniac, The Model, and the Murder that Shook the Nation "Compulsion is a lost star in the pantheon of America's golden age of Jewish fiction; its re-release should be welcomed by all. Despite prejudices and misconceptions about homosexuality that are inseparable from the time in which the story is set (and in which it was written), Levin brilliantly dissects the human heart in this classic of psychological realism -- a remarkably sympathetic portrait years ahead of its time. Its call for mercy instead of punishment, compassion instead of retribution, is one of the most powerful things I've ever read."-- Michael Lavigne, author of Not Me Praise for previous editions of Compulsion: "[Compulsion] is a masterly achievement in literary craftsmanship." -- Erle Stanley Gardner, The New York Times "A graphic and absorbing reconstruction of the crime of the century." -- The Saturday Review "A book that can take its place with Dreiser's An American Tragedy...Levin succeeds brilliantly in creating high suspense in his fictional retelling." -- New York Herald Tribune "Compulsion is a significant and moving work. For, as one of the driven sufferers in Crime and Punishment puts it, 'though we do talk a lot of trash, and I do too, yet we shall talk our way to the truth at last.' In his concern for his story, and in his understanding of the importance of the crime and the trial, Levin is writing his way to the truth. He has given us an important novel." -- Charles Shapiro, The Nation