The Basement: Meditations on a Human Sacrifice: With a New Introduction

I read this book years ago, and although I still have it, I haven't read it again, not because it wasn't worth reading but because Millet did her job too well. Her reconstruction of the events in that Indianapolis house is searing and unforgettable. No other book that I've read as an adult has given me the nightmares that this one did. (I don't have the stomach to read another book about Sylvia Likens, so can't compare Millet's book to Dean's.) I didn't see any strong feminist agenda in Millet's description of the torture, sexual abuse and eventual killing of a teenage girl by people who knew her (at least two of whom were women). Millet seems to be trying to make sense of the collective evil that allowed this to happen. She doesn't quite get there, but perhaps no one could. The questions that she asks need to be thought about, even if they can't be answered.

I read The Basement many years ago in hardcover and passed it along to all my friends, who were all equally hooked by Millett's masterful style. She doesn't simply tell the story, she goes into the mind of victim and perpetrators, taking you with her for a haunting, unforgettable ride.

Having lived just a mile south of Miss Likens' parents and 5 minutes away from the home where she was killed, I was stunned at the attempt made to tell Sylvia's story. I lived it, read it in the news and still know members of the family.While this is a perfect feminist attempt at explaining things that went on in the house on New York Street, I feel most of Sylvia's story was used to propegate a soap box issue and it made some of the book a difficult read.Tiny bits and pieces of fact (find foot notes and need to look them up elsewhere)are tossed in with commentary so often that the story is not well told beyond the opinions of the author.Still, since John Dean's book is hard to find, I think anyone who wishes to explore one of Indiana's most horrible crimes against humanity, should read "Meditations..."

The harrowing story of Sylvia Likens, a 16-year-old girl who had been assaulted and finally killed in what became an (in)famous court case in the 1960s, becomes an unexpectedly beautiful book, a prose poem more than anything else. Kate Millett meditates on the ways in which physical abuse has been condoned or otherwise accepted in so-called civilised society. Millett's feminist perspective is rather chillingly relevant, even more so in these times. A great achievement, if nearly unbearable to read for its detailing of the horrors of the case.

A heartbreaking and wonderfully written account of (and meditations on) a truly horrific murder. I got it as a true-crime fan, but it's much more a collection of a feminist, philosophical essays about this crime. A must for anyone interested in feminist theory and/or crimes against women.