Site News - Caleb Carr & The Alienist Books

Final Main Character Profile

Posted on November 22, 2013No Comments

I am pleased to report that Dr. Laszlo Kreizler’s character profile has finally been added to the main characters page of the full character list. A copy of the doctor’s profile can be viewed below.

Kreizler, Doctor Laszlo

Appears in The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness 

Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, the leader of the investigative team in The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness, is a specialist in child and criminal psychology. He is a pioneer in the theory of “context,” the idea that personality and behaviour is determined by an individual’s childhood experiences, and he applies this theory to the creation of psychological profiles of the killers being pursued by the investigative team. In this way, Caleb Carr has stated that he wanted to create Dr. Kreizler as a character who would be able to “solve all the crimes [Sherlock] Holmes couldn’t, in which there’s little or no physical evidence and no apparent motive — the product of aberrant criminal psychology.”¹ In keeping with this, Dr. Kreizler is described as one of the foremost experts on criminal insanity in New York, and when he is not involved in the team’s investigations, he works as an expert witness on criminal cases as well as running the Kreizler Institute for Children, a centre he founded for the study and treatment of children with psychological disorders brought about by environmental factors.

Dr. Kreizler’s drive to understand the origins of criminal behaviour and to help children with troubled backgrounds originates in his own childhood. Although the doctor’s parents were popular socialites in upper-class New York society, we learn midway through The Alienist that behind closed doors Dr. Kreizler’s father was an abusive alcoholic. The elder Kreizler frequently beat his son, with the worst confrontation permanently disfiguring the younger Kreizler’s arm, and he was also emotionally abusive, leaving his son “full of doubts about his own judgment and abilities.” Dr. Kreizler’s mother appears to have offered little solace. Even though she was not abusive, she turned a blind eye to the abuse taking place in the household. This, too, influenced the younger Kreizler; within The Angel of Darkness, we learn that as a young man he formed an attachment to a woman who reminded him of his mother because, on an unconscious level, he had wanted to be able to change her.

Although these dark elements of the doctor’s past help to drive him professionally, they also cause him to stumble occasionally during the team’s investigations. Due to his troubled childhood, Dr. Kreizler is quite emotionally distant and prefers to analyse his emotions in an objective manner rather than confronting them. Although this ability to objectively analyse emotions helps to make the doctor highly perceptive of the emotions of others, his tendency to avoid his own emotions makes it difficult for him to think rationally on the occasions when emotions overwhelm him. One noteworthy incident occurs during The Alienist when, after discovering a number of parallels between the killer’s early life and his own, Dr. Kreizler makes additional inferences about the killer’s past based solely on his own personal experience, a phenomenon known as “the psychologist’s fallacy.”

The protagonist of both Alienist books, Dr. Kreizler’s role as a psychological profiler is essential to both investigations. He is responsible for initiating the investigation within The Alienist in collaboration with Theodore Roosevelt, and although it is Sara Howard who is first presented with the child abduction case in The Angel of Darkness, she knows that without Dr. Kreizler’s help, the investigative team will be unlikely to solve the case. Nevertheless, Dr. Kreizler knows that hunting for the killers in both investigations is not a one-man job, and early in The Alienist he is responsible for determining what additional expertise the investigative team requires for him to be able to successfully perform his role as a profiler. Without the forensic expertise of the Isaacson brothers, John Schuyler Moore’s knowledge of New York’s criminal underground, Stevie Taggert and Cyrus Montrose’s knowledge of life on the streets, and Sara Howard’s skills as a private detective, the doctor would be unable to construct the profiles necessary for pre-empting the next move of the killers in both novels; profiles that eventually result in their identification and apprehension.

References

1. Naparstek, Ben, “Carr Trouble”, The Age 6 November 2005. Link.

More Character Profiles

Posted on November 16, 2013No Comments

The character profiles for John Schuyler Moore and Stevie Taggert have now been added to the main characters page of the full character list. This means that the only remaining main character who lacks a character profile on the full character list is Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, and I expect this profile will be added later this month. In the meantime, a copy of Stevie’s profile can be viewed below.

Taggert, Master Stevie

Appears in The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness

Stevie Taggert, Dr. Laszlo Kreizler’s loyal ward and part-time driver, provides ancillary assistance to the investigation in The Alienist before graduating to the role of narrator in The Angel of Darkness. Although Stevie is only in his early teens during the novels, he is unusually bright for his age and demonstrates a high degree of emotional maturity that allows him to provide insight into the actions and motivations of the killers pursued in both novels that other team members occasionally overlook. These aspects of his character, along with his bravery and resilience, are likely to have originated in Stevie’s early youth spent fending for himself on the streets of the Lower East Side.

Stevie started his life in a one-room rear tenement flat near the Five Points district, and learnt to pickpocket from an early age in order to support his mother’s drinking habits. Growing tired of the “string of men” his mother would bring home to the flat, as well as her transition from alcohol to opium, Stevie left home at the age of eight to sleep on the streets with a gang of street arabs. During this time, Stevie became notorious as a “banco feeler, pickpocket, and general criminal handyman” (AoD 58) and was approached by Crazy Butch from Monk Eastman’s gang to work for the kids auxiliary of the gang. After a short time with the gang, Stevie was apprehended for breaking a store owner’s leg during a theft and was sentenced to two years at the Boys’ House of Refuge on Randalls Island. Returning to court three months later after attacking a guard who had attempted to molest him, Stevie was given an opportunity to be interviewed by Dr. Kreizler who recommended that he be entrusted to his care for rehabilitation rather than being returned to a correctional facility.

Stevie’s role in The Alienist primarily relates to his occupation as part-time driver for Dr. Kreizler, although he does take an active part in a few key areas of the investigation such as the stakeout atop disorderly houses. He also demonstrates his bravery during the novel by rescuing John Schuyler Moore early in the story from the Paresis Hall where the latter had been drugged, and by refusing to reveal the whereabouts of Dr. Kreizler and John Moore when the doctor’s home is invaded; an action that results in him nearly being killed.

Stevie’s role as narrator in The Angel of Darkness ensures that his involvement in the Libby Hatch case is considerably larger. He takes part in nearly all aspects of the investigation, frequently accompanying Dr. Kreizler or Sara Howard on important interviews, and his skills in breaking and entering are invaluable when the team need to secretly enter Libby Hatch’s home to search for Ana Linares. Stevie’s street contacts also prove essential to the success of the investigation, with his love interest, Kat Devlin, able to provide the team with critical evidence that Ana Linares is in Libby’s possession, while an old friend, Hickie the Hun, loans the team his trained ferret to help scent Ana Linares in Libby Hatch’s home. Finally, it is through Stevie’s open-mindedness in accepting and befriending the Filipino pygmy, El Niño, that the team are not defeated by Libby Hatch in their final confrontation at the conclusion of the novel.

New Integrated Forums

Posted on October 30, 20132 Comments

The 17th Street community forums have now been fully integrated with the rest of the website. I hope this makes the forums and website easier to navigate, and encourages discussion among interested visitors to the website. Also note that you can now sign in to the forum through your Twitter account to make joining the forum even easier!

If you haven’t previously visited the forums, please feel free to have a look around now. There are a variety of pre-existing topics up for discussion including which historical figures you would most like to see included in a new Alienist book, the development of the relationship between Laszlo and Sara throughout the novels, and who would make the best narrator for a new Alienist book. The full transcript from the chat with Caleb Carr conducted by The New York Times can also be found at the forums, as well as discussion on Caleb Carr’s non-Alienist works.

Things might be a little quiet over on the forums now, but the more people who get involved and talk, the better this area of the site can be for everyone. I hope to see you there soon!

New Character Profiles

Posted on October 25, 2013No Comments

As the most frequently visited section of 17th Street is the full character list, I have decided to slowly work on expanding it from a simple list of character names to include short profiles for each of the characters. Four of the main character profiles are now complete: Sara Howard, Lucius Isaacson, Marcus Isaacson, and Cyrus Montrose. Once the remaining main character profiles have been written, I will begin work on the supporting characters. In the meantime, a copy of Lucius’ profile can be viewed below while the remainder of the completed profiles can be viewed on the main characters page of the full character list.

Isaacson, Detective Sergeant Lucius

Appears in The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness

Detective Sergeant Lucius Isaacson is the younger brother of Detective Sergeant Marcus Isaacson and provides forensic medicine expertise to the investigative team. Lucius and Marcus were among the new police recruits hired by Theodore Roosevelt in his attempt to rid the police force of corruption, and were handpicked by Roosevelt to join the investigation in The Alienist due to their lack of loyalty to any of the force’s corrupt ‘old guard’ as well as their progressive methods in the newly established forensic sciences. We know little of Lucius’ background prior to joining the police force except that his parents were Jewish immigrants, he has one younger sister, and he went to medical school before joining his brother in working at the Pinkerton Detective Agency for a brief time. As with Marcus, he is a bachelor and the brothers still live at home with their mother for the duration of the novels.

Both of the Isaacson brothers are hyper-analytical and were drawn to detective work after reading Wilkie Collins’ novels as boys. Of the two brothers, Lucius is more prone to anxiety and can be easily flustered, but he also has a tendency to “grandstand” which is frequently the source of many bickering arguments between the brothers throughout the novels. Even so, the younger Isaacson’s competence is unquestionable and his skills in forensic medicine are an invaluable asset to the team. It is Lucius, for example, who discovers that the coroner’s report on a three year old cold case related to the murders in The Alienist was incorrect in concluding that the victims died of cut throats as he finds damage to the laryngeal structures on the corpses that indicates strangulation instead. In the same cold case, he also observes knife marks in the eye sockets that were overlooked by the coroner, thereby providing the team with crucial evidence that the killer used a particular type of hunting knife to remove the eyes of his victims.

Although Lucius continues to make these kinds of important discoveries throughout The Alienist which are then translated into a psychological profile of the killer by Dr. Kreizler, his role in The Angel of Darkness is slightly smaller as there are fewer tasks specific to his skills that are required of him. However, he and Marcus conduct the initial examination of Señora Linares’ injuries following her attack in Central Park, thereby providing the team with clues such as the approximate height of her attacker and the type of weapon employed, and it is Lucius who also has the idea for Kat Devlin to help the team by stealing one of Libby Hatch’s jackets for fingerprint and hair fiber analysis. Later in the novel, Lucius also helps Marcus conduct the ballistics testing and fingerprint analysis on the gun and bullets used to murder the Hatch children while the team stay in Ballston Spa, and he takes responsibility for presenting the ballistics evidence in court later in the novel.