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Biography & Autobiography. True Crime. Nonfiction. HTML:From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ann Rule, "America's best true-crime writer" (Kirkus Reviews), her unforgettable classic account of the horrifying murders in the Pacific Northwest and her shock when she discovered her friend�??Ted Bundy�??was not only a suspect but also one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. Meeting in 1971 at a Seattle crisis clinic, Ann Rule and Ted Bundy developed a friendship and correspondence that would span the rest of his life. Rule had no idea that when they went their separate ways, their paths would cross again under shocking circumstances. The Stranger Beside Me is Rule's compelling firsthand account of not just her relationship with Bundy, but also his life�??from his complicated childhood to the media circus of his trials. Astonishing in its intimacy and with Rule's clear-eyed prose, you can't help but share in her growing horror at discovering that her friend was one of the most notorious American serial killers. An unforgettable and haunting work of research, journalism, and personal memories, The Stranger Beside Me is "as dramatic and chilling as a bedroom window shattering at midnight" (The New York Ti… (more)
User reviews
The events of this book are so unlikely that a fiction writer trying on a similar storyline would be laughed out of the
The Stranger Beside Me is therefore just as much about Rule's own growing realization of the truth about Bundy as it is the story of his sick life. In ordinary circumstances, this would be insufferable in a true crime writer, but the circumstances here are so far from ordinary that a very large measure of indulgence to Rule's moral equivocating is due.
This is a long, complicated book, but it needs to be. It's highly recommended for all true crime fans.
Ted Bundy is one of
This book is told from a person who knew him well and it definitely shows. 'The Stranger Beside Me' is not to be missed (especially if you're a fan of true crime novels!)
Ann Rule's account of her relationship with Ted Bundy, before and after he was charged with murder, is straightforward but still manages to delve into the emotional aspects of the case, both in terms of her friendship with Bundy and in terms of his many female victims. The writing is not spectacular, but in this case, it really doesn't have to be. The facts speak for themselves. (Some readers don't respond well to this type of writing, but it seems to be more of a preference thing than a comment on the writing talent. I personally think this type of straightforward writing is extremely effective.)
The crime scenes are stomach-turning and graphic, which juxtaposes horrifically with Bundy's suave, charismatic demeanor. Simply put, this book is terrifying and still gives me chills when I think about it. Bonus chapters, epilogues, and forewords show just how far Ted Bundy's infamy has spread through American culture...25 years after his execution, we're still talking about him.
Readalikes:
Green River Running Red - Ann Rule. If you liked how this serial killer account unfolded, from the murders to official investigations, to the trial, GRRR is another must-read. This time, the murderer is the Green River Killer, who was finally caught at the end of a 20+ year reign of terror in the Pacific Northwest.
My Life Among the Serial Killers - Helen Morrison. A forensic psychologist interviews several infamous serial killers in the hopes of learning what makes these murderers tick, and how they became serial killers.
The Good Nurse - Charles Graeber. Although this book isn't written from an insider's perspective, it evokes many of the same powerful and visceral reactions as TSBM. The Good Nurse covers the crimes of Charlie Cullen, a male nurse on the East Coast who killed as many as 300 patients in his 16+ years of hospital experience.
Defending Gary - Mark Prothero. An insider's perspective into an infamous serial murder case - in this instance, written by the lead defense attorney for Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer.
John Wayne Gacy - Sam L. Amirante. See above. This book, however, covers the trial and crimes of John Wayne Gacy, the Chicago serial killer who dressed like a clown for his victims.
Ann Rule takes us on a thrilling journey of the life and death of serial killer Ted Bundy. Being friends with a serial killer isn't the easiest thing in the world. But Ann didn't find that out until much later...
Oh, Ted Bundy... what can I possibly say about this American icon that hasn't
I feel very conflicted however about the relationship between Ann and Ted. She doesn't explain until "The Last Chapter" that she held hopes for him to still help the world in the way that she first knew him to help people. She explains how she doesn't understand and cannot comprehend how someone can hurt an innocent victim and not feel remorse for it. Perhaps this is why she continued to send him money even in prison and why she continued to correspond with him even after his conviction. She wanted to use him to do good in the only way that she knew how. Whereas in the beginning I believe she was simply in denial that someone she called her friend could possibly be such a monster.
As for Ted Bundy himself oh, I feel that he ultimately got what he wanted. Control. He was able to convince everyone that he was "the baddest son of a bitch around" and that he was the most monstrous of serial killers. By manipulating the public the way that he did he was able to victimize people that he hadn't even touched yet. When we as a populist think of Ted Bundy we think of fear. That is his legacy. and in my opinion the legacy that he wanted for himself.
But anyways enough about my thoughts on the book. Let's talk about the nitty-gritty. The book was masterfully written as with most of Ann Rule's works. Her profession has allowed her to write these true crime novels in such a way that the layman can understand and follow but she still uses the police and detective crime jargon. She makes it easy for her readers to follow along and even makes her books exciting by turning the facts and evidence into a storyline. She is without doubt America's number one true crime novelist.
I enjoyed this book immensely. although I already knew a lot about Ted Bundy there is still so much in this book that I did not know and was eager to learn. My self-studies in the field of psychology made this book more than fascinating for me. I don't think we realized when Ted was convicted how rare a jewel he actually was. And when I say that here's what I mean: it is so positively rare that we get a serial killer the likes of Ted Bundy. It is even rarer to get a serial killer the likes of Ted Bundy caught alive and held in captivity where we could possibly study him and learn from him. I truly wish we would have kept him alive and not giving him the death penalty. I understand that this statement may piss a few people off but it is my personal opinion.
I could honestly go on and on about this book but I will refrain from doing so. LOL 😜 Please read this book if you have not already. I think this is one of those books that everyone should read no matter who you are, no matter where you come from. Ted Bundy is a study and not only American history but human history itself. Because you never know when you might meet a Ted Bundy yourself.
It was a bit on the long side, but I feel like Ann was just trying to work out what actually happened and what she thought as it was going on. She was candid and easy to understand and I can't wait to read more of her books.
And Ann herself seems much more stable and thoughtful than you might assume a “true crime” author to be. (Although I tag it as popular crime reporting, gotta distance myself a little. 😎😆). I actually found Ann on the local bookshelves just because she’s popular, and used LT to find her most popular book and then bought that, so I’m not, I don’t know, doing this Jungian project on everyone named Ted, although that is my name. But since it is, this has helped me understand something that happened to me at the local community mental health center I used to go to (and please don’t judge community mental health centers from what I’m about to say).
There was one guy, a fellow client or consumer or whatever, who used to greet me by saying wryly, “Ted Bundy”. I had this vague notion that Ted Bundy had murdered people, but I didn’t ask questions about that. (Back then, I DID think that you could only be optimistic by looking away from everything terrible and sad.) So now, Other Ted (yes, this is very “How I Met Your Mother”—probs not a show I would watch again lol), was Not obviously a killer; he seemed cheerful, even. And at the time, when I was symptomatic, I was often very cheerful, always trying to fool myself, I guess, that things were “okay”, even though I could also think quite negatively at the time; it’s weird—and anyway, I guess incidentally sometimes I fooled other people, since I was “cheerful” sometimes, even though I was kinda strained and not well, you know. “Ted Bundy”. We all have a shadow, right. (“Shadows only exist in physics.” “The shadow exists in the heart of man.”)
And, you know, with “trew kryme” crap, sometimes it does come off as the Revenge of the Normals—especially, to be fair, on television, and I’m sure people go off the deep end occasionally on stuff like this. “I hear they’re building a psycho center in our town, where the little commies can get therapy and heal and shit—I say we find the city-leader, Der Stadt-Fuhrer, and tell people, this polis is ruled by, Teh Normales!”
But, you know, I’m sure it can also get tangled up with legitimate concern for the victims of violent crime, who often come from vulnerable populations, you know.
…. This is not a clever saying, but it is sad that people do get murdered sometimes, many of them girls.
I guess it gives you perspective. Sometimes girls do segregate themselves into things that seem safe, but sometimes it is true that the world is unsafe, and unsafe for them. I heard a story recently about a woman who got harassed by her boss in a “male” field, and then of course sometimes girls get physically assaulted, and killed.
So they try to stay safe.
…. Of course, I have to say that I think dismissing personal crime writing—not systemic, goodbye—would be very doctrinaire, but at the same time there certainly is a level at which this book is the conformist-y work of a Silent Generation cop, you know. Annie does betray some preferences in her pictures of the victims: pretty, conventionally educated good mother figure= infinite good; alt consciousness femme = slight embarrassment, you know. To be fair, someone born forty years before probably would have bared her teeth more at some of them. I don’t know. To be honest, she’s even kinda apologetic for her own role as a non-conforming professional woman or whatever, you know. Occasionally, at least.
…. It must be difficult to think you might get into trouble because of how you look—not, indeed, as the “obvious perp” (the foreigner!), but the “obvious victim”—the pretty young girl, you know.
The land is a tragic place.
…. It is very strange and sometimes words deceive, of course.
It is true of course that sometimes there’s religion (I’m right! I’m so right! I’ll never doubt myself again!), or love or whatever, whatever it is that stops serial killers from being normies, from just giving people the finger on the freeway and letting that be that. To take ‘love’, obviously with Bad Ted there’s the sexual assault, the sexual power. And then with his girlfriend Meg, there’s the betrayal, secondarily (she felt this greatly) of her (she did not realize) almost suicidal devotion to Bad Ted, and more rationally one might also point out, her betrayal of herself (and the community, I guess) by putting it off for so long.
Sometimes strange things lead to unpleasant consequences, whether it’s religion or love, or self-confidence or self-doubt or whatever. I don’t look at that and say, Ok kids: Seinfeld from now on, for the next sixty years! Nothing weird, now!
But I try to appreciate the problem.
…. I wouldn’t want to be chummy with Bad Ted, so to speak, and certainly Ann can see the bad in him, and it’s sometimes important to see the bad in people (and certainly to see people who see the bad in people), and I don’t think she’s a crime propagandist, you know. (A terrorist behind every unlocked door! And to think there’s still the Constitution for people like that!) But certainly, again, this is one of the faces of man—sometimes man thinks it’s more entertaining, on some level, to plan prison escapes, than to be a lawyer, right. (Which he could have been, had he wanted it.) And it’s like, certainly— Certainly this is one of the faces of the heart of darkness in an outpost of progress, you know…. And not just the wars between the nations.
…. I guess that, (assuming that the laws are applied fairly to different backgrounds), it would be permissible to execute a serial killer with a history of more than one successful escape from prison. But I wouldn’t bet a lot of money that that’s the profile of most people executed in America. Most people on death row probably just did something really bad—maybe something really lurid—when they were young, and I doubt that there’s some rule that somebody has to be a current threat to be killed, (“but it was so lurid!”), whereas really there should be, you know. But occasionally the improbable does happen, and it sounds like Bad Ted was both a serial killer and an escape artist, and I suppose it’s permissible to kill a threat, you know. If he weren’t still a threat, then I don’t see the benefit in hacking and slaying, you know—it’s not like that really brings peace, anyway; victims (and ‘codependents’ if you like), of violent crime do need healing and should be supported, but thinking you can literally kill nightmares to improve sleep comes from watching the wrong movies, you know. But it is true that Bad Ted really wrecked his way out, so to speak; if you can’t protect the public a certain way, then you can’t make that deal, even if you could if the person was just violent to a specific person, or when they were young, or at least they’re willing to be confined. I mean, if you can confine people, then they’re not a threat, and then there’s no benefit to just cut off the national nose to spite the national face, you know. But I guess that rules can have exceptions.
…. Then again we could have kept him as a research project, like a prisoner in the war against crime and the antisocial personality.
I don’t know.
I do know that Annie is a good writer, like a sort of psychologist, without the title—like a popular social psychologist, but without the degree or the kinda social class that often comes with it.
“I don’t recognize the dirty mob and their writers.”
You know.
…. I know people probably think Annie’s just a lumpenproletariat expert—although the heat-instead-of-light of crime and people who fall through the cracks is certainly a real problem, that can be looked at in a memoir-y kinda way, you know. And I remember once I was talking about religion and politics, and I said you can’t always kung fu chop Karl Marx with white light, or whatever I said. I think that’s a good principle—don’t be glib; I agree with myself, you know.
And yet that person who was a sort of monster was once also somebody’s friend, you know. And he also killed somebody who was somebody else’s friend. I suppose in a way it’s hard to understand, but it’s not that abstract. It’s not always: (a) abstract, or (b) trash. I guess sometimes things are trashy, but, you can’t really make a rule out of it (ie no legalism that’s not a pun).
…. Anyway—I’m not going to Explain How To Get Through Life, but it would have been a VERY long book, a tiresome book instead of just a detailed one, if she had spent the 600 pages lecturing and haranguing and steeling herself against being thought weak or whatever. I mean, certainly we have to see that there are dangerous guys out there. There’s that, too. I don’t know…. There’s always another story of people getting hurt, right. As long as there’s stories, there’s hurt. Even killing off the cast of characters doesn’t seem to end the play.