Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, the Man Who Killed John Lennon by Jack JonesMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
I am fascinated by the actions of the mad. Don't know why. I spend a lot of time trying to understand what was going on in their minds when they committed their atrocities. This book gets real deep in there and I appreciate this. The turn-off, however, is Jack Jones writing style and indulgence in Chapman's lunacy. At times it is written like a novel, with Jones documenting hearsay events as though he himself experienced them, which is a stupid approach for a non-fiction book. He also indulges in hyperbolic poetry describing the importance of Lennon and the evil of Chapman. I feel he would have been much better served with a 'just the facts' style. You want to print a hundred pages of Chapman's bullshit? That's fine, I'll read that because I find that kind of thing interesting but to then add the qualifier of 'this guy is crazy' to separate himself from what he is choosing to include in his own book is just cowardly. The funniest part of the book is the intro, in which Jones states that 'no money from the sale of this book is going to Chapman.' He conspicuously does not mention the fact that he will most likely be pocketing all of the money himself which really doesn't make him any less exploitative. If I had written this bad boy I could have done it in 160 pages and I would have donated half of the proceeds to some social justice charity to at least look a bit decent.
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