Customer Reviews

"All-American Monster": The Unauthorized Biography of Timothy McVeigh

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'All American Monster', by Brandon M. Stickney, chronicles the life of convicted Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh, from childhhood up to, but not including, his trial. Keeping in mind that his trial had not yet occured, I found it incredulous that the entire book was written on the assumption that McVeigh was guilty. The author even went as far as telling us what McVeigh was thinking as he watched the Murrah building explode. I'm sure writers need to make some assumptions when doing an unauthorized biography, but I found the assumption of guilt a bit unsettling. One has to wonder about how much editing was done from interviews with those that know McVeigh, in order to fit the bias of the author. To his credit, Stickney seems to have put a lot of legwork into this book, and interview numerous people. You get a general idea of who Tim McVeigh was as a teen, but from there on, I don't think the author was able to get past his own political ideas to give the reader an accurate view. Mr. Stickney even went as far as 'correcting' the political views expressed by Jennifer McVeigh, Tim's sister, in a letter she wrote to her local newspaper. A biography shouldn't be used as a personal forum for an author's own beliefs. I found it both irrelevant and unprofessional. Perhaps there just wasn't enough information available, or those who know McVeigh just didn't want to talk about him, but there was a fair amount of repitition throughout the book, and I felt it could have been 100 pages shorter, and nothing would have been missed. In short, although the book had quite a few facts, and a fair amount of research was done, I found the book much too biased to be a truely accurate story of Timothy McVeigh. Thanks, Kary

Although this book is does not take a sympathetic approach to McVeigh's story, it becomes pretty apparent how McVeigh may have been lead astray. He was abandoned by his mother, had an emotionally detatched father, etc. Shows both sides of this tragedy. The tragedy of the bombing and the trajedy of McVeigh's disenchantment with America; especially after he was treated like a human guinea pig by the army. Very interesting book, I couldn't put it down.

I got this because I wanted some insight into how the story all came about and definitely more information.I got it here.A lot of questions were answered here,so if you want insight and revelation into what happened and why this book is a good place to start.I liked it because it was so informative.I considered that a book should have a certain amount of information to be able to be fair and the writer is fair to all sides.

I got this after the nine eleven attacks and wanted to more about terrorists and how they think and what types of scenarios they have under the radar, since it was very controversial the Oklahoma incident and there was more beneath the surface.

There was more beneath the surface and it was a good idea to show what this was all about.

So there are plenty details about a militia that the subject joined along with two others who were persons of interest, it would be interesting to see what has become of them after awhile.

The militia is what led to the other persons of interest. Importantly, the militia was not while the subject was in the Army, he signed up after discharge apparently or was in the process of signing up around the Gulf war incident. Valuable for its earch into the mind of a veteran of the Gulf war, and just as cautionary as any other in its subject matter. Recommend...

Aryan Somers

Individuals who feel trapped by institutions that exert control over space and time are likely to react to the challenges which turn into tremendous repudiations of their own personal missions in life when they have been dropped from the web which previously bound them. A complex society creates a tremendous amount of dead woodedness when it starts to cut:

Get rid of dead wood.

The monster Timothy J. McVeigh had a sister, Jennifer McVeigh, who is listed for a large number of topics in the index of "All-American Monster" The Unauthorized Biography of Timothy McVeigh (1996) by reporter Brandon M. Stickney of the Lockport, New York Union-Sun & Journal. There is a Niagara County History Center in Lockport. The author inteviewed Jennifer McVeigh, 22, after the New Year following Christmas 1995 in Pendleton, New York. I was not there to check out such realities as:

She is the daughter of a nation
of people who are sick of being taxed,
investigated,
and led astray in a land
that was originally founded
by people hoping to avoid those
government intrusions.
But Jennifer is twenty-two,
and as this is being written,
she still doesn't understand
that her brother will forever
be remembered as the madman
of Generation X, the lost soldier,
and the man who killed 168 people
on April 19, 1995. (p. 288).

As I recapitulate my year in Vietnam 42 years later, the advances in personal recognition since Swedenborg was born in 1688 form a tremendous complex in which a self is imposed by society like a clown juice cook making the ultimate fruitcake. Considering Vietnam the greatest non-event of the twentieth century, the big events stand out for involuntary unBranched Davidians as Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Waco, and Oklahoma City. My own father was a minister in Iowa until 1958, leading weekly prayers for peace on Sunday morning so the good earth would not get blown away by madmen escalating political disputes into mutual denunciations. I was 22 for a few months before I went to Vietnam in 1969, and the idea that America would be bombing Cambodia until I received a J.D. From Harvard Law School in 1973 had not entered my head. Thinking as an individual matter can get stuck in circles like:

No matter what happens,
The United States of America
will always be capable
of finding a new Chinese embassy
somewhere else to bomb.

Timothy McVeigh had bomb possibility ideas from part of the world that I never served when I was in the military. The basic nature of a wealthy society as a popularity contest in which a beautiful woman like his sister might be highly valued but his own frame of mind would be explored like Dostoevsky made the novel Crime and Punishment a psychological examination of the revolutionary ideas of criminals like the author of this book picturing the leadership of the Branch Davidians by David Koresh:

The group had established
its base of operations
near the town of Waco
in west Texas.
The dusty, windswept area
has been known as a home
for odd criminals,
deeply religious groups,
and weapons enthusiasts. (p. 153).

Americans expected some fundamental changes in the behavior of superpowers as the ability to go thermonuclear became a defense strategy during my lifetime. David Koresh had been told that a license from the government would allow him to manufacture machine guns from kits that could make the civilian version of an M-16 fully automatic. Americans have produced an incredible amount of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, and it was the BATF raid on February 28, 1993, only about a month after William Jefferson Clinton became President of the United States of America responsible for determining budget priorities, and I think someone Clinton knew as an Arkansas patrolmen when his personal bodyguard said:

I have never seen Governor Clinton take drugs,
but I have seen him when he is stoned

was killed at Waco on February 28, 1993. The 168 people killed by the bomb at the federal building on April 19, 1995, certainly included a large number of people that had friends. In March 1993, a TV film showed McVeigh sitting on the hood of his car, just outside the Davidian compound:

He was part of a group of protesters
angry over the government's ongoing raid. (p. 155).

"Is your church ATF approved?" (Ibid.).

Efforts by the BATF and the FBI
to plead innocent enraged McVeigh. (Ibid.).

McVeigh's friend James Nichols told CNN
that the government was to blame
for the Davidians' deaths.
"The Waco incident--
no wonder people are getting upset.
That's outright murder." (Ibid.).

Personal recognition for Timothy McVeigh escalated into the death penalty administered after John Ashcroft became Attorney General in the administration of President George W. Bush. The satisfaction of accepting death is sweet when protesters can carry signs like:

either mindlessness or BUSH?

I'm mainly writing this review because I wanted to counter some of the negative things that have been said about "All-American Monster." If Stickney has come across to some reviewers as biased, there's a reason for that and that is that all the available evidence pointed to McVeigh's guilt! He later even admitted as much himself, showing no remorse for the children that he killed, calling them, as I recall, "collateral damage." But Stickney's greatest accomplishment here is in fleshing out just how an American war veteran with no truly distinguishing characteristics pulled off the single worst case of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. It's the same thing that has been said about the Nazis, that whole banality of evil thing. McVeigh was a total loser who decided to let his boredom and hatred lead him down a road that caused the destruction of innocent lives. As Stickney has deftly chronicled here, he was no different than any other work-a-day stiff living in any corner of this country--except that he decided to lash out at a perceived enemy (the "government"), that was in reality made up of people just trying to make a life for themselves, thereby gaining himself notoriety and priming the country for the greater human toll of 9/11. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to plumb the roots of evil.