 |
|
| Andrew Vachss (photo: Lorraine Darrow/ PROTECT.org) |
|
Andrew Vachss, "who crusaded against the abuse of children both in his real-life work as a lawyer and in vivid crime novels," died November 23, 2021. He was 79. Noting that his death had not been widely reported previously, the New York Times wrote that Vachss "was known to crime fiction fans for his novels, which were frequently described with terms like 'hard-boiled' and which just as frequently centered on child pornography, pedophilia, incest and other abuse involving children. Eighteen of them featured a tough character named Burke, an ex-con turned unlicensed private investigator who breaks more than a few rules as he goes after those who prey on children."
In 2000, Vachss told the CBS program The Early Show, "If I had a wish, it would be that what I write about was fiction."
He contended that the crimes against children he described were based on his real-world experience as a lawyer specializing in abuse and neglect cases, custody disputes and other matters involving children. The Times noted that he often commented on or wrote about public policy matters that related to such cases, and a suggestion he made as a guest on Oprah Winfrey's show in the early 1990s set in motion the legislative initiative that led to the National Child Protection Act of 1993.
Vachss was the author of more than 30 books; his first Burke novel, Flood, appeared in 1985, and the last in the series, Another Life, in 2008. He followed those with the Cross series and the Aftershock trilogy. Vachss also wrote stand-alone novels, comic books, and poetry.
He often described his novels as "Trojan horses," a way of raising awareness about the prevalence of child sex abuse and getting his ideas about the subject into popular culture. Those ideas could be polarizing. He did not, for example, have much faith in the idea of rehabilitating sexual predators.
Among his admirers was writer Joe R. Lansdale (the Hap and Leonard series), who said Vachss "was not only a great crime novelist, he was someone who changed the world, literally. Child abuse is no longer in the dark, due to Andrew shining a bright spotlight on it, and on the impact it had on into adulthood."
David Hechler, whose writings about crimes against children include the 1989 book The Battle and the Backlash: The Child Sexual Abuse War, added: "We often hear about people who are said to be 'laser focused.' It's become a cliché. But even if it weren't, it's too tepid to describe Andrew Vachss. He wasn't a professor pointing a beam at a whiteboard. His light was more like a flamethrower's. He had a white-hot intensity and a persistence that never quit."