'Don't end up in one of my books...'
D.W.Q.M.: Ian: "Where's your spirit of adventure, hm?"
the First Doctor: "It died a slow and painful death when those bats came out of the rafters."
Yesterday Persephone and I trekked out to the Borders in Cleveland Heights to meet author John Stark Bellamy II, who has been chronicling tales of woe, crime, and distaster of the Cleveland of yester-year. His fifth book on this subject, Death Ride at Euclid Beach follows the same morbid pattern as his other books: They Died Crawling, and Other Tales of Cleveland Woe; (1995) The Maniac in the Bushes; (1997) The Corpse in the Cellar; (2000) and, of course, The Killer in the Attic (2002) -the first book that Perseph and I read of his, and consequently, the book that got us hooked! Perseph, who had been looking for something to read, found The Killer in the Attic in our library's catalog, and asked me to pick it up for her. I looked at the book and told her that she'd have to let me read it when she was done. That's all it took-one book!! After reading that and discovering KSL didn't have the first three, I Ohio-linked the rest, and Perseph and I would take turns reading them. So when we found out he was going to be at our local Borders, we were so there!!
So why do people have this morbid fascination with crime, death, and disaster? Why, whenever we see a fire, or a bunch of cop cars circling an area, do we want to run out and see for ourselves what's going on? What draws us to the woefull stories of the past? I'm not sure. Bellamy does it because he has always been fascinated by urban legends, especially urban legends about Cleveland's past. He wouldn't recommend researching this kind of stuff to anyone who wants to make a living, though. He didn't even expect it to get this far...it's true-after each book, he insisted that it would be his last. The same is true with his current book-he insists that this is the last in this series, and he's planning on retiring to Vermont with his wife later in the year. He is working on another book, about a murder that happened in Cleveland, but when asked for details he replied, 'Well, if I tell you, then I will have to murder you.' LOL. Guess we'll have to wait and see!! His number one rule-he will not research into any event unless it is at least 40 years old-so as to avoid opening fresh wounds of those who were involved with the event-although occasionaly he does run into descendants of those he writes about-like the time he ran into the granddaughter of a women in Medina who was accused of poisoning her entire family. He says she was 'pleased as punch' that someone had written about it, because no one in her family wanted to talk about it. Other examples of his tales are the Collinwood school fire, the East Ohio Gas explosion, Eliot Ness and the infamous (well, infamous here) torso murders, and the Marylin Sheppard murder.
It was a very interesting hour, indeed. He answered all our questions, and signed his book for us. Perseph and I decided that since we were both planning on reading the book, that we would just get one copy that we could share, and I had him sign it to both of us. He definitely has a sense of humor, too. Since it was our usual taco night, when i sent out my taco email, I said it would be about an hour later, since 2 of us were going to be at this book signing. Jerm wrote back and asked if we could get him to sign one of his tacos. Later that day I asked him what he wanted Bellamy to write, and he replied 'something mysterious'. Well now, I wasn't about to bring a taco in and have him sign it, but I did ask Bellamy if he would sign an autograph on another piece of paper for Jerm. I asked him to write 'something mysterious', but he misunderstood and wrote, 'Don;'t end up in one of my books!' which Perseph and I thought was pretty funny. Later, before we sent Paul out for tacos, I asked him to wrap the signature around one of Jerms tacos-he was amused and appreciated it. :)
Another thing we discovered at the talk (and wish we had known about sooner) is that Bellamy has been giving slide shows chronicling the events in his books that are free and open to the public. They are being held at the Farview Library (check out the Cuyahoga County Library website for more details) His last four talks are:
April 5th : Streets of Fire: the East Ohio Gas Company Fire
May 3rd: She Got Her Money's Worth: the Dan Kaber Murder
May 10th: They Died Crawling: the 1916 Waterworks Tunnel Disaster
May 24th: Valedictory Speech: Killing People for Fun & Profit in Northeast Ohio
I think Persephone and I are going to try to make it to the talk on Monday- it should be interesting!
Author note: this entry was started during my lunch break, but I didn't have a chance to finish it until this evening. Just think of it as my lame attempt at an April Fools joke. :-D ;)
the First Doctor: "It died a slow and painful death when those bats came out of the rafters."
Yesterday Persephone and I trekked out to the Borders in Cleveland Heights to meet author John Stark Bellamy II, who has been chronicling tales of woe, crime, and distaster of the Cleveland of yester-year. His fifth book on this subject, Death Ride at Euclid Beach follows the same morbid pattern as his other books: They Died Crawling, and Other Tales of Cleveland Woe; (1995) The Maniac in the Bushes; (1997) The Corpse in the Cellar; (2000) and, of course, The Killer in the Attic (2002) -the first book that Perseph and I read of his, and consequently, the book that got us hooked! Perseph, who had been looking for something to read, found The Killer in the Attic in our library's catalog, and asked me to pick it up for her. I looked at the book and told her that she'd have to let me read it when she was done. That's all it took-one book!! After reading that and discovering KSL didn't have the first three, I Ohio-linked the rest, and Perseph and I would take turns reading them. So when we found out he was going to be at our local Borders, we were so there!!
So why do people have this morbid fascination with crime, death, and disaster? Why, whenever we see a fire, or a bunch of cop cars circling an area, do we want to run out and see for ourselves what's going on? What draws us to the woefull stories of the past? I'm not sure. Bellamy does it because he has always been fascinated by urban legends, especially urban legends about Cleveland's past. He wouldn't recommend researching this kind of stuff to anyone who wants to make a living, though. He didn't even expect it to get this far...it's true-after each book, he insisted that it would be his last. The same is true with his current book-he insists that this is the last in this series, and he's planning on retiring to Vermont with his wife later in the year. He is working on another book, about a murder that happened in Cleveland, but when asked for details he replied, 'Well, if I tell you, then I will have to murder you.' LOL. Guess we'll have to wait and see!! His number one rule-he will not research into any event unless it is at least 40 years old-so as to avoid opening fresh wounds of those who were involved with the event-although occasionaly he does run into descendants of those he writes about-like the time he ran into the granddaughter of a women in Medina who was accused of poisoning her entire family. He says she was 'pleased as punch' that someone had written about it, because no one in her family wanted to talk about it. Other examples of his tales are the Collinwood school fire, the East Ohio Gas explosion, Eliot Ness and the infamous (well, infamous here) torso murders, and the Marylin Sheppard murder.
It was a very interesting hour, indeed. He answered all our questions, and signed his book for us. Perseph and I decided that since we were both planning on reading the book, that we would just get one copy that we could share, and I had him sign it to both of us. He definitely has a sense of humor, too. Since it was our usual taco night, when i sent out my taco email, I said it would be about an hour later, since 2 of us were going to be at this book signing. Jerm wrote back and asked if we could get him to sign one of his tacos. Later that day I asked him what he wanted Bellamy to write, and he replied 'something mysterious'. Well now, I wasn't about to bring a taco in and have him sign it, but I did ask Bellamy if he would sign an autograph on another piece of paper for Jerm. I asked him to write 'something mysterious', but he misunderstood and wrote, 'Don;'t end up in one of my books!' which Perseph and I thought was pretty funny. Later, before we sent Paul out for tacos, I asked him to wrap the signature around one of Jerms tacos-he was amused and appreciated it. :)
Another thing we discovered at the talk (and wish we had known about sooner) is that Bellamy has been giving slide shows chronicling the events in his books that are free and open to the public. They are being held at the Farview Library (check out the Cuyahoga County Library website for more details) His last four talks are:
April 5th : Streets of Fire: the East Ohio Gas Company Fire
May 3rd: She Got Her Money's Worth: the Dan Kaber Murder
May 10th: They Died Crawling: the 1916 Waterworks Tunnel Disaster
May 24th: Valedictory Speech: Killing People for Fun & Profit in Northeast Ohio
I think Persephone and I are going to try to make it to the talk on Monday- it should be interesting!
Author note: this entry was started during my lunch break, but I didn't have a chance to finish it until this evening. Just think of it as my lame attempt at an April Fools joke. :-D ;)
Comments