Three Month Fever Book

Andrew Cunanan had already killed four people when he shot Gianni Versace, notes Gary Indiana, but since "only media celebrities are considered to have actual existence" in American culture, it took the murder of the famous fashion designer to make Cunanan's story--which was quickly packaged as a "narrative overripe with tabloid evil"-- worth noticing. Three-Month Fever deflates the hype surrounding the case, using a variety of experimental journalistic techniques to explore Cunanan's personality and recreate his frame of mind at the time of the killings. Far from being a "homicidal homosexual" aberration, Indiana says, Cunanan's life before the murders was actually rather mundane, even in its extremes. Indiana also easily distinguishes between these extremes and hysterical fabrications by the press. For example, Indiana cites the restaurant tabs charged to Cunanan's credit card to debunk the theory that use of crystal meth was a factor in the murders: "One indisputable characteristic of people on crystal meth is they don't eat. People on steroids, however, eat plenty. If we could put the crystal meth together with testosterone ... but we can't. A mountain of sushi rules it out."Read More