Requiem for a Female Serial Killer by Phyllis Chesler Coming November 12

New English Review Press is pleased to announce the publication of our thirty-fifth book, Requiem for a Female Serial Killer by Phyllis Chesler.

Advance Praise:

Aileen Wuornos—female serial killer? Feminist folk-hero? A broken woman betrayed her entire life by a system that should have protected her? Perhaps all of the above, in one volatile package. In this amazing book, Phyllis Chesler takes you on a mind-bending journey through a story you thought you knew. Chesler sets out to write a book to make you question everything and succeeds.
—Gregg Olsen, author, If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood 

This book is a tour de force. It is both an imagined interpretation of the crimes of Aileen Wuornos, the female ‘serial killer,’ and a description of the way that feminists in the US responded to her trial and execution. Chesler provides a fascinating and complex analysis. This book is a powerful account of the terrible harms of prostitution and violence against women.
—Dr. Sheila Jeffreys, author, The Idea of Prostitution

If you love true crime thrillers, as I do, you must read Requiem with its feminist psychological twist. You won’t be able to put it down. Chesler, an eminent psychologist, gets inside the mind of a unique female serial killer. FBI profilers should be ordering their copies right now. This is a behind-the-scenes account which is very smart. Anyone who cares about life and death, madness, justice (or the lack of it)  and riveting trials in an American courtroom, about the death penalty, and about rape trauma and the right to self-defense will be amazed and captivated by this never-before ventured analysis.
 —Alan Dershowitz, author, Guilt by Accusation: The Challenge of Proving Innocence in the Age of #MeToo

Phyllis Chesler’s nineteenth book is not only compelling, it is gripping in detail, a graphic read that explores issues of prostitution and rape. In these days, when it is hard to be shocked, Chesler alarms and disturbs. It’s a must read.
—Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author, Infidel

Chesler’s astute analysis, elegantly fused with graphic scenes and the harsh vernacular of true crime, make this an artful and essential book.
—Vicki Hendricks, author, Miami Purity

This is a unique book by a brilliant and internationally respected author. On the surface, it is an absorbing tale of rape, child-abuse, multiple murders, abuse, depravity, and a rare female victim who defiantly fought back. But at a deeper and more important level, it is the best published account in years of the tragic, ugly, and  actual lives of women who must sell sex in order to survive.
—Dr. Robert Brannon, Co-Founder, National Organization for Men Against Sexism

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This psychological crime thriller takes us inside the mind of a unique female serial killer, a prostitute who murdered seven adult men—a case with which the author was intimately involved. The issues raised by this high-profile criminal case remain unresolved to this day. Women, even prostitutes, have the right to self-defense in theory, but in practice, the story is more complicated. 

This book will challenge everything you ever thought about prostitutes, serial killers, and justice in America. 

Aileen Wuornos is a damaged soul, a genuine American outlaw, a symbol of women’s rage, a symbol of what can happen to severely abused children, and of how our justice system fails women.

Chesler’s involvement with a serial killer has haunted her ever since. She speaks in Aileen Wuornos’ voice, as well as in her own, and delivers an incisive, original, and dramatic portrait of a cognitively impaired, traumatized, and alcoholic woman who had endured so much pain in her short life. When she’d had enough, the results were deadly.

This is a poignant, sometimes humorous, never-before-told behind-the-scenes tale. Wuornos’ story is handled with great sensitivity, but also with realistic detachment by Chesler as she probes the telling moment, the telling phrase. Was Wuornos suffering from post-traumatic stress after a life lived on a “killing field?” Was she also “born evil?” So many prostitutes have been torture-murdered by serial killers—how did Wuornos, once prey, become a predator? 

 Requiem for a Female Serial Killer will also haunt you. It won’t let you put it down. 

 Take a walk on the wild side. The ghost of Aileen Wuornos beckons.