Bully: A True Story Of High School Revenge (Mass Market Paperback)

by Jim Schutze (Author) "THE WALL ABOVE LISA'S BED WAS A SHRINE TO yearning..." (more)
Key Phrases: scuba knife, urban psychosis, hillbilly girl, Derek Kaufman, Bobby Kent, Derek Dzvirko (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Jim Schutze combines natural details about the sawgrass marshes and roaring alligators of the area south of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with keen observations about the fantasy lives of teenagers hooked on surfing, steroids, and instant gratification, to paint a harrowing picture of seven suburban kids who slide all too easily into moral depravity. At the heart of his tale is a kind of love triangle: the "bully," his best friend Marty, and Marty's girlfriend, who fiercely desires to rescue Marty from a strangely destructive friendship with strong homosexual undertones. Schutze's account of the aftermath of the murder includes interesting details on how the police skillfully lured confessions from the kids involved. I found the writing to have a few inconsistencies, and I wished the author had provided more background about how he reconstructed the dialogue, but those are small reservations about an excellent book overall. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
In 1993, seven young people from the Fort Lauderdale, Florida, area joined together to kill Bobby Kent, an acquaintance of them all. In the group were Marty Puccio, Bobby's lifelong friend; Lisa Connelly, a sullen and overweight girl obsessed with Marty, her first boyfriend; and Alice (Ali) Slay, a former teenage prostitute and Bobby's chief sexual partner. All seven were white and middle-class, described by one detective as "mall-rat wannabes," and all were indulged by their parents. Bobby was a latent homosexual and a sadist, the latter tendency increased by heavy use of steroids. He regularly beat Marty and Ali and delighted in teasing and abusing the mentally handicapped. The murder plot was hatched by Lisa, and Marty was one of the major participants, two of whom turned state's evidence. The other five were found guilty, with sentences ranging from death (Marty) to life (Lisa) and other long prison terms. Houston Chronicle staffer Schutze (Cauldron of Blood) has captured the mindset of the intellectually and emotionally shallow killers: far from feeling remorse or regret, without exception they admitted to feeling put upon, if not victimized, by the law and its agents. A chilling tale. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Avon (February 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380723336
• ISBN-13: 978-0380723331
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (92 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #59,314 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great Story . . . Not So Great Book, November 13, 2000

By	Wayne Roache, Jr. (Broward County, Florida) - See all my reviews

Ok, let me start out by saying, that the story in the book, "Bully", although very sad and disturbing, is very interesting, as far as true crime stories go. But, the book as written by the author is very flawed.

First of all, the book is VERY uneven, in several aspects.

Let's start with the title - "Bully: A True Story of High School Revenge". This title tends to imply that a ruthless bully finally gets what's coming to him. The actual narrative while exploring this concept seems to drift away from it. In other words, the story does not match the title. Bobby Kent is shown more as a victim, than the title would imply.

The first half of the book, covering the pre-murder days and the murder of Bobby is VERY detailed. It is detailed to the point that the details become hard to believe. The author, Jim Schutze, describes almost every situation down to the smallest detail and incident. He describes thoughts of the characters and describes motivations of said characters, as fact. Where did he get this information? Court documents, police reports, interviews with the killers? He never really says. It would be nice if he referenced, where particular information came from but he never does. The whole narrative is presented as fact, with no point of origin. I personally find it hard to believe that he found documentation of every fact presented, including thoughts Bobby Kent had just before his death. I may be wrong but I think that his imagination filled in the gaps.

On the other hand, the post-murder section of the book speeds by and at times is very sketchy. This transisition from a super detailed narrative to a narrative with big empty gaps is very disjolting. Only one of the trials, out of the 7 people convicted is covered in any amount of great detail. The rest are just brushed over rather quickly. I find this change as rather strange.

I watched an A&E documentary about the case several "facts" presented in the documentary were contrary to the book, despite, the author being interviewed in the documentary. One can also find the same discrepancies in old newspaper accounts of the case. I tend to believe the A&E documentary and newspaper articles over the book.

There are even certain minor facts within the book itself, which disagree with each other. For example, the cars which were driven to the murder site change within a few pages of each other. Since there is no explaination or even acknowledgement of this, one must assume that it was an error that slipped past the editors but it is rather obvious to the reader.

Another problem, that I personally have with "Bully" is its grim view of teenagers in 1993 South Florida. Schutze makes these dropout underachievers seem like the norm. I grew up and currently live in Hollywood, FL, the city that Bobby Kent and Marty Puccio lived in. I am around the same age, as most of the characters in the book. I can state for a fact that 1993 South Florida was not, as bad as Schutze portrays. YES, there is and was drug use. Yes, gangs exist. Yes, there was that prostitution ring. Yes, the murder did happen. But all of these (and other) things he describes, were not the norm. Schutze acts like this was the way of life for South Florida teenagers in 1993. These kids were dropouts from society. They were NOT "normal" kids, as Schulz tries to convince the reader. This may seem petty but being a teenager from Hollywood in this time period, I take offense for this bizarre version of teenage life being presented, in the way it is.

Ok, here is another thing. There is not one single picture of Bobby Kent (the victim), in the whole book. There is one picture of Bobby's corpse lying face down (and very hacked up) in a swamp. THAT'S IT! A reader can read the whole book and never have any idea what Bobby looked like. The whole book is about his murder and we have no idea what he looks like. I have never read a true life crime book before, that has pictures yet does not have a single living picture of the victim. Yet, on the A&E documenatry, there are several pictures of Bobby, in life. So they do exist but for some odd reason, Schutze doesn't (or maybe couldn't) include them. Heck, even the pictures of the killers are only police mugshots, not normal pictures (and yes they did have many "normal" pictures on the A&E documentary).

At the end of the book, Schutze tries to place a kind of blame on the killers' parents for somehow being at fault for what happened. EXCUSE ME, Mr. Schutze, I need to check but I am pretty sure that all of the killers except one were over the age of 18, at the time of the murder. They were (almost) all legally adults. How it is the parents fault is beyond me.

Also, "Bully" really needs an update section. 3 of the 7 convicted killers have been released and almost all of the sentences, including Marty Puccio's death sentence have been reduced on appeal.

So read the book, if you like. Just beware of its many faults. "Bully" might very well be more fiction than fact.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and disturbing story, strange narration., November 6, 2000

By	Scott David Berwitz (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

I am sort of in the middle on this book. I find the story absolutely fascinating...apparently I am not the only one, they are filming a movie on it right now. But the actual narration and author comments seem a little off base to me.

Many times in the book, we read of the characters of the book as affluent, normal, high school kids. But in truth, the group described here is in no way representative of the typical high schooler, especially ten years ago. Prostitution rings, beating up retarded people, filming pornography, dropping out of school, and finally, immediately joining in on a casual murder--none of this is representative of the typical teenager.

At least from what is written in the book , the truth stands that these are kids joined together by the fact that they have rejected typical adolescence and have chosen to be bad kids. More than once, Bobby is seen as the one with the brightest future ahead of him simply because he didn't drop out of high school.

It's a sad, tragic story. All these questions run through your mind as you read it. How come murder came before any real attempt to confront? Why did Bobby beat up his best friend who he obviously cared about on a constant basis? The answers are hinted at but never really fully explored in this book. Another good question is how much of Marty's erratic behavior was Bobby's influence and how much was just him?

This is an interesting, compelling book. But it is not a story of high school revenge. When this murder took place, it had been quite a while since any of the people involved had been in high school. This is really a story of group of people who have seemed to go out of their way to make the worst decisions possible in shaping their lives...and taking others.

32 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Result of No Parental Control, August 5, 2000

By	B Ardell Young (Camden, SC United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The murder of Bobby Kent is a good example of what happens when parents do not perform the principal job of parenting; raise children to be responsible adults. None of the parents, including Kent's, can escape the blame for the death of Bobby Kent.

This is a well written book that maintains an objective stance when describing the events that led to Kent's murder. Though Kent did not deserve to die, his years of bullying Marty Puccio obviously pushed Puccio to a deep hatred that was brought to the surface by his friends and the right place and time.

The most disgusting part of the book was the domination of Ali, Bobby, and Lisa over their parents. I cannot understand any parent who allows a child to disrespect them and make decisions as if they were providing the income to pay the bills.

An update for this story was recently provided by A&E's 'American Justice'TV series. Heather got out of prison in 1998, Ali, now known as Alice, can get out in 2003, Lisa had her life sentence reduced to twenty-five years and comes up for parole in 2006. Marty had his death sentence reduced to life.

Lisa maintains that she knew nothing about a plot to kill Bobby, she thought Marty was just going to beat him up. Marty must have been eating his Wheaties since Bobby routinely whacked him on a daily basis. Ali (Alice, she's grown up) states she had no idea that Marty planned to kill Bobby(she doesn't talk about the previous night)and was in a state of shock after Bobby was killed. These girls should have to exchange their sentences with Marty because they were the prime movers by the killing.