American Honor Killings

“Not only is this book the best sort of true-crime writing, but it is also a stunning exploration of the concept of manhood in America” (Sebastian Junger, New York Times–bestselling author of War). Through six detailed accounts of murders involving gay men, American Honor Killings examines the facts of cases that are too often politicized, sensationalized, or simply ignored. David McConnell researched killings from small-town Alabama to San Quentin’s death row, and here recounts both notorious and lesser-known crimes. We may tend to think these stories involve either the perpetrator’s internal struggle over his own identity or a victim’s fatally miscalculated proposition. They’re almost never that simple. These riveting narratives reveal how different factors played into each case, among them ideas and beliefs about masculinity. Together, they form a secret American history of rage and desire. In each story, victims, murderers, friends, and relatives come breathtakingly alive. The result is a true-crime book of unusual power, depth, and psychological insight—“a journalistic tour de force made all the more impressive by jailhouse interviews” (Publishers Weekly). “A masterpiece of reportage . . . At turns heartbreaking and terrifying . . . If Truman Capote were alive today, he would die of envy. David McConnell has taken the mantle of great American nonfiction writer.” —Evan Wright, author of Generation Kill

In the fall of 1931, Thalia Massie, the bored, aristocratic wife of a young naval officer stationed in Honolulu, accused six nonwhite islanders of gang rape. The ensuing trial let loose a storm of racial and sexual hysteria, but the case against the suspects was scant and the trial ended in a hung jury. Outraged, Thalia’s socialite mother arranged the kidnapping and murder of one of the suspects. In the spectacularly publicized trial that followed, Clarence Darrow came to Hawai’i to defend Thalia’s mother, a sorry epitaph to a noble career. It is one of the most sensational criminal cases in American history, Stannard has rendered more than a lurid tale. One hundred and fifty years of oppression came to a head in those sweltering courtrooms. In the face of overwhelming intimidation from a cabal of corrupt military leaders and businessmen, various people involved with the case—the judge, the defense team, the jurors, a newspaper editor, and the accused themselves—refused to be cowed. Their moral courage united the disparate elements of the non-white community and galvanized Hawai’i’s rapid transformation from an oppressive white-run oligarchy to the harmonic, multicultural American state it became. Honor Killing is a great true crime story worthy of Dominick Dunne—both a sensational read and an important work of social history

Paints a portrait of the killers of several gay men through research and jailhouse interviews, exploring the roots of hatred and sexual violence and claiming that the murders may be considered "honor killings" by their perpetrators.

Based on original interviews of 22 Muslim-American women of South Asian descent on the topics of honor and honor killings, this book examines honor and culture, and their intersections with power, tradition, gender, family, and religion. Additionally, it incorporates an autoethnographic approach describing the author’s journey to Pakistan to create a personal narrative throughout. This volume offers a unique perspective that allows for informed exploration and description of Muslim-American women’s attitudes and beliefs surrounding the practice of killing women and girls in order to regain family honor.

A page-turning novel about the next battlefront in the war on terror from New York Times best-selling author, Kenneth R. Timmerman.Israeli intelligence picks up the departure of a mysterious cargo ship from Iran, while half-way across the world, a Muslim-American girl is found dead in suburban Maryland. The two events appeared to be worlds apart. But they were not.Major Danny Wilkens, the U.S. government's top Iran analyst, becomes convinced that the cargo ship is part of an Iranian scheme to kill millions of Americans. But incompetent bureaucrats and a broken CIA force him to go outside the system, where he puts his career and even his marriage on the line in order to stop its relentless trajectory toward America.FBI Special Agent Michael Brannigan is perplexed by the "honor killing" of a Muslim girl. But it's only when his investigation is shut down by G-girl Joanna Greary that he discovers a sordid underworld of steamy sex, corrupt government officials, and local Muslim leaders who have exploited America's loose immigration laws for terror.In this fast-paced Washington novel of spies, faith, betrayal, and lust, New York Times best-selling author Kenneth R. Timmerman tells a story so chilling that it had to be kept out of the newspapers.Is there really a spy for the terrorists who has access to the highest reaches of the United States government, including the White House?Have our intelligence agencies become so bureaucratic and corrupt they can no longer act when a clear and present danger appears?Is Iran's master-terrorist at work today, probing our weaknesses?Is the American Muslim community giving shelter to deadly enemies?Timmerman takes us from underground hide-outs in Iran to beach-side bars in the British Virgin Islands, from the port of Maracaibo to a shoot-out in Dubai. He brings us smooth Mossad operators, CIA bumblers and a Persian beauty named Aryana, who uses a computer company in California as a front for clandestine operations inside Iran.As the Iranians get ever closer to our shores, readers are in for a surprising climax that may have many of them down on their knees.

“Using her deep understanding of self-psychological theory and her own extensive clinical experience, Karen Krett offers us a scholarly yet down-to-earth examination of hope. For too long, hope has been promoted as an unmitigated virtue without any consideration of its dark side. Yet as Krett shows through revealing clinical examples, hope may also impede development and contribute to psychological suffering. Her book serves as a wonderful guide from hope’s dark side to the light.” Doris Brothers, Ph.D., author of Toward a Psychology of Uncertainty: Trauma-Centered Psychoanalysis and Falling Backward: An Exploration of Trust and Self-Experience. Hope saturates the cultural air we breathe: in movies, songs, advertising, political slogans and self-help books. Now, for the first time, Karen Krett, LCSW, is putting “hope” on the therapist’s couch. Krett examines the duality of hope. In childhood, hope can be the emotional glue that keeps us from falling apart, from losing the thread of life. In adulthood, unconscious patterns of hoping for what can never be often interfere with our ability to make good choices in love and work. It may seem as if giving up any hope would mean the end of us, but Krett offers a refreshingly different perspective: by breaking the hold of the dark side of hope, we can become free to direct ourselves toward hopes which can be realized.

Murder in the Name of Honour is Rana Husseini’s hard-hitting and controversial examination of honour crimes. Common in many traditional societies around the world, as well as in migrant communities in Europe and the USA, they involve a ‘punishment’—often death or disfigurement—carried out by a relative to restore the family’s honour. Breaking through the conspiracy of silence surrounding this crime, one writer above all others has been instrumental in bringing it to the world’s attention: Rana Husseini.

A fearless memoir about tribal life in Pakistan—and the act of violence that inspired one ambitious young woman to pursue a life of activism and female empowerment “Khalida Brohi understands the true nature of honor. She is fearless in her pursuit of justice and equality.”—Malala Yousafzai, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize From a young age, Khalida Brohi was raised to believe in the sanctity of arranged marriage. Her mother was forced to marry a thirteen-year-old boy when she was only nine; Khalida herself was promised as a bride before she was even born. But her father refused to let her become a child bride. He was a man who believed in education, not just for himself but for his daughters, and Khalida grew up thinking she would become the first female doctor in her small village. Khalida thought her life was proceeding on an unusual track for a woman of her circumstances, but one whose path was orderly and straightforward. Everything shifted for Khalida when she found out that her beloved cousin had been murdered by her uncle in a tradition known as “honor killing.” Her cousin’s crime? She had fallen in love with a man who was not her betrothed. This moment ignited the spark in Khalida Brohi that inspired a globe-spanning career as an activist, beginning at the age of sixteen. From a tiny cement-roofed room in Karachi where she was allowed ten minutes of computer use per day, Brohi started a Facebook campaign that went viral. From there, she created a foundation focused on empowering the lives of women in rural communities through education and employment opportunities, while crucially working to change the minds of their male partners, fathers, and brothers. This book is the story of how Brohi, while only a girl herself, shone her light on the women and girls of Pakistan, despite the hurdles and threats she faced along the way. And ultimately, she learned that the only way to eradicate the parts of a culture she despised was to fully embrace the parts of it that she loved. Praise for I Should Have Honor “Khalida Brohi’s moving story is a testament to what is possible no matter the odds. In her courageous activism and now in I Should Have Honor, Khalida gives a voice to the women and girls who are denied their own by society. This book is a true act of honor.”—Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and founder of LeanIn.Org and OptionB.Org