Three-Month Fever: The Andrew Cunanan Story

I've read this book about 4 times and enjoy it more each time I go through it again. It's probably one of the top 10 books I've read and enjoyed in my life and that's saying something...I'm a librarian! I'm also a true crime buff and a Cunanan buff. The book simply conjectures what MIGHT have happened in and around the known facts about Cunanan's life and killing spree. Most of Indiana's insights seem logical and probable to me. Take Lee Miglin for instance. Considering all the evidence it seems likely Cunanan probably met Miglin before, knew him and that Miglin was also gay or perhaps bi-sexual. He killed Miglin in a rage and because he wanted Miglin's stuff; mainly his car to get away in. I also read Orth's book about Cunanan and hers didn't hit me well; lots of anti-gay stuff in that book; also a boring read. Indiana writes terrific prose; wow what a writer. Great command of the language and I have to admit I laughed at something on every second page. His satiric turn of phrase is wonderful. Read it even if you aren't interested in Cunanan; he has some insights into American culture that are worth taking in. Probably it's this latter fact that makes people dislike the book. Reading uncomfortable things about the culture you sit in isn't pleasant for some people.

WHY do so many people seem to dislike this book so much? First off, read Maureen Orth's 'Vulgar Favors' before reading Indiana's book--the two are a very good combination & Orth's book (which I also like, though less than Indiana's) gives a good idea how seriously to take Indiana's unusual technique. In at least two significant ways, Indiana's is the better book: he doesn't make the mistake of flailing around for some sort of conspiracy theory to explain Cunanan's murder of Versace and he convincingly discounts drug-use that Orth rather unwisely buys into. Also, his is better written. As to the debate about Indiana's fictionalization or creative non-fiction or whatever, it's certainly no more of a sin than anything Truman Capote did in 'In Cold Blood,' which if you take the time to read about it (e.g. George Plimpton's account) you'll see was fictionalized (though my edition was sold as NONFICTION/LITERATURE). Indiana is up-front about what he did, laying it out in the beginning, in the prefaces, specifying what he invented, which is good to know 'cause he has some excellent quotations from Cunanan's writings that are NOT fictionalized. Indiana isn't SYMPATHIZING with Cunanan, he's EMPATHIZING, & therein lies a world of difference & empathy with a murderer is no bad thing if you want to understand, which presumably would be one of the chief reasons to buy the book. Murderers are human & Indiana has a nice quotation from Gore Vidal about that in the beginning (if you want to see a killer, go look in the mirror). Indiana glorifies the murders much less than 90 percent of conventional 'true crime' books, which often seem to go overboard perhaps partly to justify their publication (gee, this murder was more brutal than most & that's why we need yet another account of yet another murder). Weaknesses of 'Three Month Fever' include that Indiana's sense of place is, as someone else commented, not very good at all ... but then the places are maybe not so very important in this book, which is surely mostly about the PLACE of Cunanan's mind & our collective minds reacting to Cunanan. It's a weakness for Indiana to claim, as he does, that he's invented a new approach, 'cause that's just not true, all the way back to 'In Cold Blood.' Nor is it true if you know anything about the much discussed 'new journalism' of people such as Tom Wolfe. The prose is overblown, but this might be deliberate, since it reflects the sort of overblown verbiage one would have heard from Cunanan & also it is, frankly, beautifully queeny, really evocative of the way some queens present themselves, really well done. So maybe it's intentional. Certainly Indiana has a hypothesis & that's all it can be, but it rings a good deal truer than Orth's, where hers collapses in her apparent inability to grasp that a sociopath might kill for the sake of killing & for no other reason. People seem to think there's no way Indiana could know much of what he writes. I beg to differ.

When I first saw this book on the market, I didn't purchase it, the reason being that I had just completed another book on Andrew Cunanan and didn't want more of the same. I'm so glad that I had second thoughts. Reading true crime books for about 15 years, my greatest interest is in finding out what forces came together to create this crime. On that point, the author hit the "nail right on the head". Only someone gifted in the knowledge of human nature could have seen this story so clearly. I walked away from this book feeling that I knew Andrew Cunanan completely. If you are the type of person who remembers that murders are "human beings" also, then this is one book you won't want to miss.

Those who fault "Three Month Fever" for the author's "poor research" are missing the point -- this is less a true crime book than a personal meditation on the Cunanan episode and its relation to the current media climate of overblown sensationalism. Indiana is no Maureen Orth, but then again, who wants him to be? I'd rather read a creative interpretation on this moment in American crime history than Orth's obsessively detailed summary of the "facts" anyday. Treat this book more as something which lies somewhere between fact and fiction (a la "In Cold Blood") and you won't be disappointed.

As an acquaintance of Andrew Cunanan and one of his victims, and as a longtime denizen of at least one of his social worlds, I can recommend this book without reservation. "Three Month Fever" is a far wiser book than Maureen Orth's "Vulgar Favors," which catalogs a lot of already known facts but suffers enormously from that author's cluelessness about gay life, drugs, BDSM, and "addictive pornography." Even at its most speculative, Indiana's book is eminently credible. What's more, it's often deliciously darkly humorous. If you want directions to the Mall of America, buy a road map. This book tells the larger truth about us all.