Andrew Vachss
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
crime fiction
Crime fiction
Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, child protection consultant, and attorney
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
exclusively representing child
Child
Biologically, a child is generally a human between the stages of birth and puberty. Some vernacular definitions of a child include the fetus, as being an unborn child. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority...
ren and youth
Youth
Youth is the time of life between childhood and adulthood . Definitions of the specific age range that constitutes youth vary. An individual's actual maturity may not correspond to their chronological age, as immature individuals could exist at all ages.-Usage:Around the world, the terms "youth",...
s. He is also a founder and national advisory board member of PROTECT
PROTECT
Protect , or The National Association to Protect Children, is a political organization established in 2002 and dedicated to the protection of children from abuse, exploitation, and neglect. It is a nonprofit, 501 membership association with members in every U.S. state and 10 nations...
: The National Association to Protect Children.
Vachss' last name rhymes with "tax".
He is a native New Yorker
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Biography
Before becoming a lawyerLawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
, Vachss held many front-line positions in child protection. He was a federal investigator in sexually transmitted disease
Sexually transmitted disease
Sexually transmitted disease , also known as a sexually transmitted infection or venereal disease , is an illness that has a significant probability of transmission between humans by means of human sexual behavior, including vaginal intercourse, oral sex, and anal sex...
s, and a New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
social-services caseworker. He worked in Biafra
Biafra
Biafra, officially the Republic of Biafra, was a secessionist state in south-eastern Nigeria that existed from 30 May 1967 to 15 January 1970, taking its name from the Bight of Biafra . The inhabitants were mostly the Igbo people who led the secession due to economic, ethnic, cultural and religious...
, entering the war zone just before the fall of the country. There he worked to find a land route to bring donated food and medical supplies across the border after the seaports were blocked and Red Cross airlifts banned by the Nigerian government; however, all attempts ultimately failed, resulting in rampant starvation.
After he returned and recovered from his injuries, including malaria and malnutrition, Vachss studied community organizing in 1970 under Saul Alinsky
Saul Alinsky
Saul David Alinsky was a Jewish American community organizer and writer. He is generally considered to be the founder of modern community organizing, and has been compared in Playboy magazine to Thomas Paine as being "one of the great American leaders of the nonsocialist left." He is often noted...
. He worked as a labor organizer and ran a self-help center for urban migrants in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. He then managed a re-entry program for ex-convicts in Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, and finally directed a maximum-security prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
for violent juvenile offenders
Minor (law)
In law, a minor is a person under a certain age — the age of majority — which legally demarcates childhood from adulthood; the age depends upon jurisdiction and application, but is typically 18...
.
As an attorney, Vachss represents only children and adolescents. In addition to his private practice, he serves as a law guardian in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
state. In every child abuse or neglect case, state law requires the appointment of a law guardian, a lawyer who represents the child's interests during the legal proceedings.
Writings
Andrew Vachss is the author of 25 novelNovel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s and two collections of short stories
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
, as well as poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, plays
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
, song lyrics
Lyrics
Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...
, and graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
s.
As a novelist, he is perhaps best known for his Burke series of hardboiled mysteries; Another Life constituted the finale to the series.
Since completing the Burke series, Vachss has focused on stand-alone works. His 2009 novel, Haiku, focuses on the troubled lives of a band of homeless men in New York City. In 2010, Vachss published two books. Released in November, Vachss' novel The Weight, is a noir romance involving a professional thief and a young widow in hiding. Heart Transplant, an illustrated novel in an experimental design, was released in October. It tells the story of an abused and bullied young boy who finds his inner strength with the help of an unexpected mentor.
Vachss has also written non-fiction
Non-fiction
Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...
, including numerous articles and essay
Essay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
s on child protection and a book on juvenile criminology. His books have been translated into 20 languages, and his shorter works have appeared in many publications, including Parade
Parade (magazine)
Parade is an American nationwide Sunday newspaper magazine, distributed in more than 500 newspapers in the United States. It was founded in 1941 and is owned by Advance Publications. The most widely read magazine in the U.S., Parade has a circulation of 32.2 million and a readership of nearly 70...
, Antaeus
Antaeus
Antaeus in Greek and Berber mythology was a half-giant, the son of Poseidon and Gaia, whose wife was Tinjis. Antaeus had a daughter named Alceis or Barce.-Mythology:...
, Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
, Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
, and the New York Times. Vachss' literary awards include the Grand Prix de Littérature Policiére, for Strega [as La Sorcière de Brooklyn]; the Falcon Award, Maltese Falcon Society of Japan, for Strega; the Deutsche Krimi Preis for Flood [as Kata]; and the Raymond Chandler Award for his body of work.
Andrew Vachss is a member of PEN
PEN American Center
PEN American Center , founded in 1922 and based in New York City, works to advance literature, to defend free expression, and to foster international literary fellowship. The Center has a membership of 3,300 writers, editors, and translators...
and the Writers Guild of America
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
. His autobiographical essay was added by invitation to Contemporary Authors in 2003.
Child protection
Many Vachss novels feature the shadowy, unlicensed investigatorPrivate investigator
A private investigator , private detective or inquiry agent, is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private detectives/investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...
Burke
Burke (character)
Burke is the protagonist of the Burke Series by Andrew Vachss.He is a career criminal, an orphan raised by the State who was abused throughout his childhood in state institutions and foster homes. Burke lives in New York City, always on the edges of society...
, an ex-con
Convict
A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison", sometimes referred to in slang as simply a "con". Convicts are often called prisoners or inmates. Persons convicted and sentenced to non-custodial sentences often are not termed...
, career criminal, and deeply conflicted character
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
. About his protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
, Vachss says:
Vachss coined the phrase "Children of the Secret", which refers to abused children, of whatever age, who were victimized without ever experiencing justice, much less love and protection. In the Burke novels, some of these Children of the Secret have banded together as adults into what Vachss calls a "family of choice". Their connection is not biological, and their bond goes well beyond mere loyalty. Most are career criminals; none allows the law to come before the duty to family.
Dogs
Another important theme that pervades Vachss' work is his love of dogDog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...
s, particularly breeds considered "dangerous," such as Doberman pinschers
Doberman
Doberman or Dobermann most commonly refers to Doberman Pinscher, a breed of dog, or to its creator, Karl Friedrich Louis Dobermann.It may also refer to:*Doberman , a 2003 album by Tomoyasu Hotei*Doberman , a Japanese ska/punk band...
, rottweilers, and especially pit bulls
American Pit Bull Terrier
The American Pit Bull Terrier is a medium-sized, solidly built, short haired dog whose early ancestors came from England and Ireland...
. Throughout his writings, Vachss asserts that with dogs, just as with humans, "you get what you raise."
He is a passionate advocate against animal abuse such as dog-fighting
Dog fighting in the United States
Dog fighting in the United States is an illegal activity in which fights between two game dogs are staged as a form of entertainment and gambling. Such activity has existed since the early 19th century in the United States and was gradually outlawed in all states...
, and against breed-specific legislative bans
Breed-specific legislation
Breed-specific legislation is a law or ordinance passed by a legislative body pertaining to a specific breed or breeds of domesticated animals. In practice, it generally refers to laws or ordinances pertaining to a specific dog breed or breeds....
. With fellow crime writer James Colbert, Vachss has trained dogs to serve as therapy dog
Therapy dog
A therapy dog is a dog trained to provide affection and comfort to people in hospitals, retirement homes, nursing homes, schools, people with learning difficulties, and stressful situations, such as disaster areas....
s for abused children. The dogs have a calming effect on traumatized children. Vachss notes that using these particular breeds further increases the victims' feelings of security; their "dangerous" appearance, in combination with the extensive therapy training, makes them excellent protection against human threats. During her time as chief prosecutor, Alice Vachss regularly brought one such trained dog, Sheba, to work with abused children being interviewed at the Special Victims Bureau.
Alice Vachss
Vachss' wife, Alice, was a sex crimes prosecutorProsecutor
The prosecutor is the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the common law adversarial system, or the civil law inquisitorial system...
, and later became Chief of the Special Victims Bureau in Queens, NY
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....
. She is the author of the non-fiction book Sex Crimes: Ten Years on the Front Lines Prosecuting Rapists and Confronting Their Collaborators, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
The Burke series
- Flood (1985)
- StregaStrega (novel)Strega is a hardboiled detective novel written by American author and attorney Andrew Vachss, first published in 1987. The story features the pursuit and destruction by the protagonist Burke, an ex-con private investigator, of a pedophile ring involved in trading child pornography via telephone...
(1987) - Blue Belle (1988)
- Hard Candy (1989)
- Blossom (1990)
- Sacrifice (1991)
- Down in the Zero (1994)
- Footsteps of the Hawk (1995)
- False Allegations (1996)
- Safe House (1998)
- Choice of Evil (1999)
- Dead and Gone (2000)
- Pain Management (2001)
- Only Child (2002)
- Down Here (2004)
- Mask Market (2006)
- Terminal (2007)
- Another Life (2008)
Other novels
- A Bomb Built in Hell (1973)
- Shella (1993)
- Batman: The Ultimate EvilBatman: The Ultimate EvilBatman: The Ultimate Evil is a novel by Andrew Vachss, a crime novelist known for focusing on child abuse in his novels.-Plot Summary:...
(1995) - The Getaway Man (2003)
- Two Trains Running (2005)
- Haiku (2009)
- The Weight (November 9, 2010)
Short story collections
- Born Bad (1994)
- Everybody Pays (1999)
- Proving It (2001) Audiobook collection.
- Dog Stories Online collection.
Graphic novels and series
- Hard Looks (1992–93) Ten-volume series.
- Batman: The Ultimate Evil (1995) Two-volume graphic novel.
- Cross (1995) Seven-volume series with James Colbert.
- Predator: Race War (1993) Five-volume series; (1995) Single-volume graphic novel, collection of 1993 series.
- Alamaailma (1997) Finnish graphic novel, illustrating two of the "Underground" short stories from Born Bad.
- Hard Looks (1996, 2002) Single-volume trade paperback.
- Another Chance To Get It Right: A Children's Book for Adults (1993, 1995) (Reprinted with additional material, 2003)
- Heart Transplant (October 19, 2010)
Plays
- Placebo (in AntaeusAntaeus (magazine)Antaeus was a literary quarterly founded by Daniel Halpern and Paul Bowles and edited by Daniel Halpern. It was originally published in Tangier, Morocco, but operations were later shifted to New York City. The first number appeared in the summer of 1970, the final issue in 1994...
, 1991) - Warlord (in Born Bad, 1994)
- Replay (in Born Bad, 1994)
Non-fiction
- The Life-Style Violent Juvenile: The Secure Treatment Approach (Lexington, 1979)
- The Child Abuse-Delinquency Connection — A Lawyer's View (Lexington, 1989)
- PARADE Magazine Articles (1985-2006)
- Other Articles and Essays
Honors and awards
- A/V Peer Review (highest rating) by Martindale-Hubbell
- LL.D. (Hon.) Case Western Reserve University, 2004
- First Annual Harvey R. Houck Award (Justice for Children) 2003
- First Annual Illuminations Award (St. Vincent's Center National Child Abuse Prevention Program) 2003
- John Hay Whitney Foundation Fellow, 1976
- Industrial Areas FoundationSaul AlinskySaul David Alinsky was a Jewish American community organizer and writer. He is generally considered to be the founder of modern community organizing, and has been compared in Playboy magazine to Thomas Paine as being "one of the great American leaders of the nonsocialist left." He is often noted...
Training Institute Fellow, 1970
See also
- Child abuseChild abuseChild abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...
- Child pornographyChild pornographyChild pornography refers to images or films and, in some cases, writings depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child...
- Child sexual abuseChild sexual abuseChild sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...
- Emotional abuse
External links
Audio interviews:
Print interviews:
- The Cult interview by Rob W. Hart
- The Independent (Ireland) interview by Ian O'Doherty
- Amazon interview of Andrew Vachss on his final Burke novel
Video interview: