My Affair with the Trunk Murderess

About the Book

In 1939, a few years before the Second World War, a fatherless guilt-ridden teenage Arthur Randall is fighting his own war. His mother, penniless and asthmatic, has ripped him from his orthodox Jewish family in Iowa and brought him to Phoenix to face an uncertain future in a one-room apartment in a terrifying new place. Living down the hall is Katherine Antonelli, an unbearably sexy mother of his best and only friend, Floyd. While working as a newspaper delivery boy, Arthur is stalked relentlessly by Frank Girvin a homosexual nurse at the state insane asylum. Nearby is Westerfield Drugs where Arthur now works as a soda jerk and tries to dodge the abuse of his sadistic workmate, Marvin Hooks. Plagued by the worst of his fears is Winnie Ruth Judd, the infamous "trunk murderess" who once again has escaped from the insane asylum; and Arthur, displacing all his fears on to her imagines she is hell-bent on dismembering his body as she had those of her two roommates. And there is Phoenix Union High beauty, Myrna Handmacher, the girl for whom Arthur pines romantically. MY AFFAIR WITH THE TRUNK MURDRESS is a coming-of-age story with an unforgettable cast of characters and, at the center, a boy coping with sexual awakening and temptation on the perilous road to becoming a man.

About the Author

Melvin Marks recently retired as president of a Chicago-based marketing company. He has been a guest lecturer at Northwestern University Graduate School of Management (the Kellogg School) and at John Marshall Law School, Chicago. A newspaperman early in his career, he resumed writing full-time since his retirement. He is the author of two books of nonfiction: Jews among the Indians and Yesterdays Warriors. His essays have appeared in Chicago Magazine, Across the Board, the New York Times Magazine, Texas, and Western States Jewish History. His work is included in the anthology About Men: Reflections on the Male Experience (Poseidon Press, 1987). Melvin Marks is a veteran of the Second World War and the recipient of four bronze battle stars. He and his wife reside in Chicago.