Best of
True-Story

1981

The Minds of Billy Milligan


Daniel Keyes - 1981
    . . except himself. Out of control of his actions, Billy Milligan was a man tormented by twenty-four distinct personalities battling for supremacy over his body—a battle that culminated when he awoke in jail, arrested for the kidnap and rape of three women. In a landmark trial, Billy was acquitted of his crimes by reason of insanity caused by multiple personality—the first such court decision in history—bringing to public light the most remarkable and harrowing case of multiple personality ever recorded.Twenty-four people live inside Billy Milligan. Philip, a petty criminal; Kevin, who dealt drugs and masterminded a drugstore robbery; April, whose only ambition was to kill Billy's stepfather; Adalana, the shy, lonely, affection-starved lesbian who “used” Billy's body in the rapes that led to his arrest; David, the eight-year-old “keeper of pain”; and all of the others, including men, women, several children, both boys and girls, and the Teacher, the only one who can put them all together. You will meet each in this often shocking true story. And you will be drawn deeply into the mind of this tortured young man and his splintered, terrifying world.

Victim: The Other Side of Murder


Gary Kinder - 1981
    During an armed robbery, several hostages were brutally tortured, shot in the head, and left for dead. Victim focuses on the members of one family -- including a mother who died after the attack and a son who was left barely alive -- as they fought for his survival and struggled to rebuild their lives. Victim was the first book to go beyond the headlines and statistics about violent crime, to tell the victims' dramatic story of love, loss and courage. It remains one of the most influential books in the victims' rights movement and has become required reading in criminology courses across the country. It may be more relevant now than ever. "Victim is Truman Capote's In Cold Blood turned inside out." -- Newsweek; "Just as Capote did, Kinder has somehow created a story that is truer than true." -- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Torpedo Run / Banners Of Silk / My Left Foot / Trojan Treasure


Torey L. Hayden - 1981
    

City Kid


Mary MacCracken - 1981
    It won the School Library Journal Best Book Award. Another exploration of the very real and painful world of the learning-disabled child.

The Zoo That Never Was


R.D. Lawrence - 1981
    A heart-warming story of animal psychology, The Zoo That Never Was describes the adventures of the wild menagerie when RD Lawrence and his wife Joan became keepers of orphaned and abandoned animals, including bear, otters, skunk, raccoons, lynx, Canada geese, ducks, turtles, porcupines and more.

The Life of Father De Smet, SJ: Apostle of the Rocky Mountains


Eugène Laveille - 1981
    Pierre De Smet (1801-1873) is mentioned in U.S. history books almost as a footnote, but there was in the mid-19th century America no single person the American Indians trusted as they did this Jesuit Priest. He was "more powerful than an army" at a huge treaty conference of U.S. officials and the Western Indian nations near Laramie in 1851, and he was the chief negotiator at another, with the Sioux, in 1868. Impr. 431 pgs, PB