Customer Reviews

Nothing is Strange with You: The Life and Crimes of Gordon Stewart Northcott

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Clint Eastwood's movie, Changeling, is an examination of some very unusual circumstances whose occurrence hinges upon a crime committed by Gordon Stewart Northcott; but Changling only tells half of the story, the relatively sane half of the story. It is the other half of the story that James Jeffrey Paul brings to us so effectively in this work.

Cold and unfeeling as only a tiny percentage of our society's misfits could be without collective social reason breaking down, Northcott is revealed in a stunningly matter-of-fact style, allowing readers to be rational witnesses to true horrors irrationally committed. Paul doesn't sensationalize, doesn't titillate, doesn't exaggerate...and that is the genius of his style for this particular topic. It enables us to recognize how very damaged Northcott's personality must have been to enable his coldhearted commission of such foul acts.

This book is not drama, not formula, not engineered terror. It is historical reality horror revealing a personality the likes of which each of us can only hope we never run across. I recommend this book highly. Can't wait to see what they do with the movie.

I really enjoyed this book. Paul obviously spent a great deal of time and energy researching his subject, and his dedication shows. However, in his zeal to show us all of his research, he occasionally (sp?) seems to forget that he is writing for an audience.

The author does have certain viewpoints which he holds but in my opinion doesn't ever really substantiate. For instance, he is very clear that he doesn't believe Stewart's claims that his father raped his sister, (making her his mother), and that he doesn't beleive Stewart was sexually abused by his father. Aside from one 'eyewitness', Paul seems to base his opinion soley on his impression of the father from the court record (i.e. someone who lied repeatedly to help his son, despite vocal and probably physical abuse.) Now, I don't know that I believe this claim myself - it seems that nearly every family member in the Northcott clan was a compulsive liar - but I also don't see any real evidence to disprove it either.

All this to say that although in most cases Paul does a good job of just presenting the evidence, I felt that there were times he had clear opinions, which I was interested in because he obviously knows a great deal about the case, but in those instances I didn't feel he presented compelling evidence to back them up.

Because he wants to present the whole story, a good deal of the book is very repetitive (as the case was.) Also interesting is that while the Christine Collins case receives almost no mention (a paragraph), there are a number of pages dedicated to Clinton Duffy who, while a compelling historical figure, has almost nothing to do with the case.

Anyway - at times the book felt a little unpolished (like this review) but overall I felt I learned a lot about the case and was given a great deal of information in an interesting and easy to read manner. Well done.

I was interested in reading up on G.S. Northcott after hearing about the movie coming out based loosely on his life and crimes. Of course there is very little out there, and much of it is inaccurate. This book has turned out to be a great, thorough resource. The story of this family and their crimes is compelling and I couldn't put the book down. The author did an amazing job researching this now nearly forgotten case, that shocked America in 1928. GS Northcott is a disturbing individual his story really makes you think about the horrors that man is capable of. Every member of this family is like a character in a movie, it's hard to believe this story was almost lost to history. The author has done a great job, and I highly recommend.

I first came across the name Gordon Stewart Northcott years ago in a Los Angeles Times article about the death penalty in California. Because the image of an early-century, chicken-farming serial killer is so different from that of the later monsters who'd stain the scene, the story lingered in my mind, but the case is so old that there was little to be found about it on the Internet, or elsewhere, until Clint Eastwood's "Changeling" was released. This book manages to digest and regurgitate some of the late 1920's newspaper coverage and much of the trial transcript for the reader, but it does little more than that. There are too many long, inevitably tedious passages from the trial transcript, as Northcott (who acted as his own lawyer) ineffectively questioned witnesses, and trial transcripts rarely make for good reading, no matter how skilled the advocate. As a result, the book tends to be very hard going for anyone not determined to make it through to the end. Sociopaths, by their very nature, are all but impossible nuts to crack, and I don't blame the author for not being able to make Northcott or his motives comprehensible. Still, the book has a definite lifelessness that a good editor might have been able to alleviate. Even the capture of Northcott is so drily presented that I had to go back and re-read the passage to be sure that it had happened. The author says there are many photographs of Northcott available; the tedious text could have done with many more. Lastly, the book lacks both index and bibliography, which I find hard to forgive in a work of nonfiction.

Spending nearly two decades researching, and it being the only work devoted to Northcott, you would think this would be the authority on the subject. Unfortunately, it drags on with mere recitation of legal documents, without much organization or editing.

Maybe my standards are higher than others, but I thought this book was possibly one of the worst books I have ever read. Two redeeming aspects kept it from the garbage: Gordon Stewart Northcott is an interesting person, a degenerate as well; the story itself is compelling and ridiculous. Try as he might, James Jeffrey Paul could not ruin this story.

The story is this: a young, effeminate male is accused of kidnapping, sodomy, and murder of young males in 1920s California. A crazy family relationship, plus the skill of the entire family's ability to lie and manipulate, make them all somewhat culpable in the crimes. A story now resurfacing for its bizarre details and ambiguous resolution (plus the Clint Eastwood/Angelina Jolie film, Changeling, of which this book is not connected to, but insist upon bringing it up in order to help sales), Northcott's life is fascinating, if not sickening.

What did Paul do right: The beginning set up the book well with an introduction into true crime, like most good books include, i.e. Harold Schechter (look up Bestial: The Savage Trail of a True American Monster to see the other Gorilla Man in California during this time for true crime done right). The end was nicely done, in that you knew what became of most of the main players.

What he did wrong: I do not want to read court documents and transcripts in their entirety; if I did I would get them myself. If you write a book that is not a reference piece, encyclopedia, or a manual you need to make the story engaging and readable--court documents are, generally, not. If a story is as confusing and chaotic as this, it is your job as the author to make it understandable, for instance, use the same name repeatedly to refer to people (sometimes Stewart would be referred to as Gordon, and I would need to make sure it was the same person), and if there are several myths for a part of the story, lay each one out and discuss them with analysis (he generally tells them, but not in the same section of the book than refers to the part where he did reference it). And above all else, EDIT!! Any high school English student will tell you that basic mistakes take away from your work, and continually making the mistake makes you look like a poor writer. Making sure words are spelled correctly is just basic, and seeing as Xlibris is a self publishing site, I put the blame on the author.

This is an interesting story, and that gets 5 stars from me, but this book does not tell an interesting story. For the great bulk of it, it is merely a transcript. Unless you have to read this book, I would not. Maybe the new book in November will be better, The Road Out of Hell: Sanford Clark and the True Story of the Wineville Murders, let's hope.

I tend to review a book I have read when there is no prior review or when I feel that the existing reviews do not cover the same information that I find useful when considering reading a book.

Nothing is Strange With You is a well written and well researched book about Gordon Stewart Northcott containing several photographs and extensive endnotes. Unfortunately it does not contain a bibliography or index which is frustrating at times. Although it is obvious that the author has spent a great deal of time researching Northcott and his trial and in general his account is very well written.

The book attempts to set the crimes Northcott committed in to a social context relating how they were viewed and reported at the time and tries to objectively assess his personality. Personally I considered the author did quite a good job in remaining objective and unbiased simply retelling the story without forcing his own views on the reader. I would like to point out that the author does not reveal his own views on the death penalty but does relate those of people involved with the case at the time and whether they were pro or anti Northcott's sentence.

To some extent I felt the success of the author in finding out so much about Northcott and his family meant that I had very high expectations for how the book would end. James Paul discloses what became of Northcott's parents and his nephew Sanford Clark. However there is very little information about Jessie Clark and her mother, or more importantly the families of the victims whose lives had been ruined and whose suffering the author had managed to convey so well. Another area where more research would have proved very interesting and the author's own opinion would have been useful was whether or not Northcott was guilty of murdering more than the four known victims. The book relates that he was linked to over twenty missing children cases and he later said that he had abducted more, but the book fails to examine this aspect of the case adequately. In one of the last chapters of the book Northcott's father wrote in a letter about how one of the missing children had turned up. I do not want to write a review of the film Changeling but I notice that this was part of the film's plot and yet the author of the book doesn't make anything of this statement or relate what had happened to this child to the reader or whether this statement was even true. I was going to give the book only three points because of the above flaws but I have decided that the volume of research conducted and the fact that the author did find out so much information, and attempted to tie up so many loose ends that I decided to give the book four points.

I have just finished reading this book about the horrific murders that took place practically in my backyard. James Jeffrey Paul has taken a very difficult subject and put took together an interesting story. I agree with the previous reviewer about it being unpolished but I liked reading the passages that are the murder's own words. The difficult part is reading Northcott own words. The reader really gets a feel for how unbalanced he and his mother were. It's unbelievable how this could have taken place.
Very interesting follow up to the movie.

Nothing is Strange with You: The Life and Crimes of Gordon Stewart Northcott

James Jeffrey Paul's book on Gordon Stewart Northcott is a fascinating yet disturbing glimpse into the life of a serial pedophile and murderer. The book is meticulously researched and documented. It is simultaneously a tale of Northcott's path to ultimate damnation and Sanford Clark's final redemption.

Mr. Paul re-assembles and clearly recounts a long forgotten true-life horror story set in Riverside County, California 80 years ago that was convoluted by conflicting information and intentional lies of a family of pathological liars, Gordon Stewart Northcott, Sarah Louise Northcott and Cyrus George Northcott. The text is literate with 411 citations to original research, interviews, trial transcripts, news stories and other official sources. The book is an obvious labor of love that is the culmination of fifteen years of research.

I became interested in the Northcott case two years ago when I first learned of the case but was frustrated that the news accounts from the Los Angeles Times, other newspapers and other sources gave a superficial view of Northcott. When I found out about Mr. Paul's book earlier this year, I looked forward to reading it. While reading the book, I came to understand why Mr. Paul devoted fifteen years of his life to researching this case.

According to News & Observer - Raleigh, NC, USA, Local writer digs into 'Changeling' history By Matt Ehlers, Staff Writer, October 31, 2008 (http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/1275864.html):
"Before James Jeffrey Paul entered the library that day in 1989, he had never heard of Gordon Stewart Northcott, a pedophile whose crimes put the plot of 'Changeling' in motion.
"But Paul became intrigued when he came across an old crime-history volume that chronicled the sins of Northcott, one of America's most evil, but least well-known, serial killers. Later, he found a photograph that helped cement his interest in the case. ..."

Since the focus of the book is on Gordon Stewart Northcott, by necessity information on the victims and other people affected by the case is somewhat cursory. It would be interesting to have a companion volume that more fully explores the impact that Northcott had on these people.

This book is not exactly light reading, but if you are interested in this historic California murder case or are looking for follow-up to the movie The Changeling, then this is a really good study. Well researched and detailed, the author really did his homework as this case took place 80 years ago and details are hard to come by.
It was exactly what I was looking for.
Bob - Yorba Linda, CA

I found the story of Northcott intriguing thanks to the movie Changeling and decided to buy this book. It does give a lot of information about events that took place but from different viewpoints and most of them conflicting. Realizing that this is an old story and information must have been difficult to come by, it was an interesting glimpse into a strange tragedy from California history. By the end of the book I found it so hard to imagine that this person and his family could have existed and been as successful as they were both internally and socially.