With makeup and an affected Elvis pout, Tucson's Charlie Schmid was a crude parody of a bad-boy heartthrob. In 1964, he still had a hold on girls who'd follow him anywhere. He murdered three of them.
It was the dawn of the free-love movement-perfect for a magnetic madman who'd also foreshadow its end a few years later in the malignant charisma of Charles Manson. The inspiration for a classic story by Joyce Carol Oates, Schmid, the most bizarre serial killer of any era, was the epitome of a narcissist flattered into believing he could get away with murder.
The Pied Piper is part of Bloodlands, a chilling collection of short page-turning historical narratives from bestselling true-crime master Harold Schechter. Spanning a century in our nation's murderous past, Schechter resurrects nearly forgotten tales of madmen and thrill-killers that dominated the most sensational headlines of their day.
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[The 1950's have been recast in the popular imagination as a bland, balmy era of simplicity and innocence - of sock hops and going steady and after-school milkshakes at Fop's Sweet Shoppe] ***(Amazon Original Stories, 28 June 2018, ebook, 69 pages, Prime Reading)
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The Pied Piper disturbed me more than the other narratives in the Bloodlands Collection. There's something deeply unsettling about the sway Smitty, described by adults as a creepy, freaky and odd had over teenagers, especially girls. The comparisons to Charles Manson and Charles Starkweather were apt. Something about him and his actions and the actions of his loyal devotees made me squirm. Joyce Carol Oates is one of my favourite writers. Her story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? is one of the best pieces of fiction I've ever read and I've read it at least a dozen times. It's one of her best known and for good reasons. I didn't realise until reading the epilogue of The Pied Piper that Smitty and his crimes were her inspiration. The Pied Piper is excellent.
