From Publishers Weekly
The 1981 killing of wealthy, wheelchair-bound businessman Robert Sand, who was in his late 60s, by his beautiful 40-year-old wife, is not especially involving, but the personality of Andrea is. A former call girl and actress, she had been married four times before and had had dismal experiences with each husband. And she did not fare much better with Sand, who involved her in acting out his fantasies, many of them sadomasochistic, and whose jealousy kept her a virtual prisoner in their Palm Springs condo. Andrea, as depicted by Saroyan ( Last Rites ), had difficulty in separating reality from fantasy; she also suffered from a histrionic personality disorder, attention-seeking, irrational angry outbursts and narcissism. Found guilty of murder in the first degree, she received a 26-year sentence. A model prisoner, she will be eligible for parole in 1997. Saroyan, who sets out to show "how bad things are or can be between the sexes in America," makes his point, and along the way presents a profile of a complex personality that will keep readers spellbound. Photos.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
Knife-edged retelling of a killing in California's ritzy residential country club Rancho Mirage, in which the sadistic victim heedlessly orchestrates his own murder by way of his mentally troubled wife. Saroyan (Friends in the World, 1992, etc.) writes more coolly here than ever before and few will deny his objectivity, although he clearly deplores the court's final verdict of first-degree murder, with no insanity plea influencing the wife's sentence of 25-years-to-life. Beautiful ninth-grade dropout Andrea Claire, a lifelong victim of males and addicted to serving them, leaped from high-priced call girl to wife of elderly Bob Sand, a millionaire bound to a wheelchair by multiple sclerosis but gripped by a boundlessly kinky sex drive. This was her fifth disastrous marriage, his second, and at the time of his death she was 39, he 69. She married, she said, not for money but companionship. But jealous Bob curtailed her social life, kept her running about the house nude, enjoyed making up rape fantasies and having Andrea act them out while he masturbated or took endless Polaroids of her bareness. Andrea liked this sex play with her fun-loving, well- read, intellectual husband (as she saw him) and had no qualms when he showed his photo collection to visitors. But she began reacting badly to his ever more intense spanking-and-rape fantasies, which echoed a real rape endured in her teens: Her none-too-stable mind at last burst as he drew for her a terrible scene, causing her to go into a blackout and stab him 26 times. The prosecutor bent himself fiercely to proving her sane, and won, but the reader groans. Told through a film of ice--but may Saroyan's success here not trap him exclusively in the true-crime genre. (Photographs--not seen) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Saroyan sets out to unravel the bizarre details of a murder committed in the early 1980s. The person eventually convicted, Andrea Mims, was found guilty of murdering her wealthy, much older husband, Robert Sand. Although she suffered a lifetime of abuse by the men in her life (family members, husbands, and "clients" encountered while working as a highly paid prostitute), a not-too-rosy picture emerges of Mims and her individual psychopathology. What exactly was going on when Mims told endless stories of being abducted, raped, and beaten--after her husband's murder? Punctuated throughout with stories Mims relates of kinky sexual demands and sordid experiences, Saroyan's riveting but head-spinning narrative is not for the faint of heart. Alice Joyce --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Andrea Mims is fortyish, attractive, intelligent. But no one can tell who the real Andrea might be. Is she a victim, whose sexually kinky husband was viciously murdered by unknown assailants; who was subjected to over 30 rapes in the next two years; and who might now pay the price for society's lack of compassion? Is she a black widow who killed for gain, staged the "rapes," and introduced her next husband to the business end of a hammer? Does she have a personality disorder, or is she insane? For three years authorities and jurors struggled with these questions. Saroyan, son of writer William Saroyan, clearly presents a complex case, leaving room for one final macabre twist. Recommended for true crime collections.
- Jim Burns, Ottumwa, Ia.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
Aram Saroyan, the poet, novelist and author of the non-fiction bestsellers Trio and Last Rites gives us his deepest and most compelling book yet. He currently resides in Southern California. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
