Month: August 2024

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Book: “Letters to the Purple Satin Killer” by Joshua Chaplinksy

Publishing Info: CLASH Books, August 2024

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the author.

Where You Can Get This Book: Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Jonas Williker is considered one of the most sadistic serial murderers of the modern era. This epistolary novel explores the aftermath of his arrest and the psychological trauma of those who lived through it. The Pennsylvania native brutalized his way into the zeitgeist during the early part of the new millennium, leaving a trail of corpses across five states before his eventual arrest. All told, Williker was responsible for the rape and murder of 23 women, and is suspected in the deaths of dozens more. His calling card—a torn piece of fabric found on or inside the bodies of his victims—helped popularize his now ubiquitous nickname. The Purple Satin Killer. 

In the years following his arrest, Jonas Williker received hundreds of letters in prison. Collected here, these letters offer a unique glimpse into a depraved mind through a human lens, including contributions from family, the bereaved, and self-professed “fans.” They represent a chilling portrait of the American psyche, skewering a media obsessed culture where murderers are celebrities to revere. What you learn about the man from these letters will shock you, but not as much as what you learn about yourself.

Review: Thank you to Joshua Chaplinsky for sending me an ARC of this novel!

Even though I am deeply fascinated by true crime and have been since I was a child, I will absolutely admit that it can very easily shift from morbid curiosity to bad taste, especially when perpetrators are given a state of celebrity or put on a pedestal. A recent example of this was when Charles Manson died a few years ago and Voodoo Donuts decided it was a good idea to make one of their special donuts commemorate him (I will say that this meant our at the time trivia team had the BEST team name that night, as our name included the phrase ‘a tasteful Charles Manson Memorial Donut’). Spoiler alert, Voodoo got a lot of much deserved pushback because WHAT THE HELL? There are always going to be people who make murderers into folk heroes and romanticize them, and “Letters to the Purple Satin Killer” by Joshua Chaplinsky is an incredibly dark horror novel that puts that concept at center stage, as the reader reads a number of letters written to a sadistic serial killer from loved ones, enemies, and, yes, fans. When Chaplinsky reached out to me about this book I was nervous, but also INCREDIBLY intrigued, as it sounded brutal, but like it had some serious potential.

I’ll be pretty forthcoming out the gate here, this book has a lot of content warnings attached to it. It has some pretty visceral descriptions of violence in it, so absolutely tread forth with caution. If you don’t like violence, this is probably a good one to skip, because Chaplinsky doesn’t hold back too much, especially during the opening ‘foreward’ that describes the crimes of Jonas Williker.

Where do I even begin with this? I suppose as good a place as any is the structure of this book, written like a true crime paperback that collects letters sent to serial killer Jonas Williker while he is in custody for dozens of brutal murders. The letters range from his mother, to a cop who unwittingly let him get away after a routine stop and has been haunted by it ever since, to obsessed fangirls ranging from porn stars to lonely women to old friends and so many more. We never get any letters from Jonas’s perspective, but honestly, I was okay with that because we absolutely get to know him and what a monster he is through the letters and words of others, as well as getting to know all of these people who have been in his life both before and after the murders. It’s also a great choice to not center the serial killer and instead look at the people who are writing him letters and their motivations, and I really felt like I got the motivations of most of them.

The letters range from the depressing, to the darkly humorous, to the unsettling, and while sometimes the satirical elements were really coming out, I also know that it’s not TOO farfetched given that a lot of the inspirations of these strange characters aren’t too off from actual people who glommed on to actual serial killers. Hell, Ted Bundy (a lot of Williker’s story, crimes, trial, and prison time, harkens to Bundy), Richard Ramirez, and the aforementioned Charles Manson all had their lady friends that sought them out AFTER their crimes were well known, so I felt that that tracked pretty well. There are also the poignant and sad ones, as Jonas’s mother writes him diligently, as does an ex girlfriend who had NO idea what he was capable of and is deeply messed up because of it. And then there are the really creepy bits, like the slow reveal that, due to Jonas’s notoriety, there is a copycat killer on the loose, sending strange postcards within the letter collections that pop up eerily. There is also the mysterious anonymous penpal who is claiming that she is the victim that Jonas wasn’t able to kill, and how her trauma of being the only one left has her unraveling the longer Jonas is imprisoned as she struggles with survivor guilt. Her letters were both heartbreaking as well as very, very scary as she loses more and more control as Jonas’s execution date comes ever closer. I thought that the voices all seemed pretty unique, which was a huge feat given that Chaplinksy has dozens of characters here. It’s also interesting getting to see Jonas’s whole story through these letters, as we follow him from arrest to death row, and it’s such a compelling device that kept me reading IN SPITE OF the really rough stuff in this book.

It’s also a great send up of this weird obsession some people have with violence and serial killers, and the different ways that people try to attach themselves to people like Jonas. One of the more effective ones involved Evangelicals trying to reach out to ‘save’ him, hoping to use this monster who violently murdered many women as an example to get their religious message across. This is, again, something that happened with Ted Bundy, as he was supposedly born again in prison (though I am pretty certain that he did it not because he actually believed in Jesus as his lord and savior, but because he could troll people while also perhaps getting some leniency. Which he didn’t). And in Jonas’s case, none of that matters to those who are trying to use him as an example, all that matters is that he is a shining example of their own agenda. There are also momentary references to political figures that Jonas had connections to before his murders came to light that are now DESPERATE to keep their good names away from his, panicking in letters trying to distance themselves. Some may find that unbelievable, but it totally worked for me. There’s also just the idea of people trying to attach themselves to a serial killer solely because of the infamy, a true testament to true crime obsession and the lingering spectre of American violence run amok. Since it’s satire it can be over the top, but it always felt like it was grounded in this grim reality.

“Letters to the Purple Satin Killer” is chilling and unrelenting, a character study and a study of culture. It’s a rough read, but I found it fascinating and very effective.

Rating 9: Deeply disturbing and yet very on point about the darker sides of true crime and celebrity, “Letters to the Purple Satin Killer” is not for the faint of heart, but pretty darn insightful about a culture obsessed with violence.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Letters to the Purple Satin Killer” isn’t on any Goodreads lists as of now, but it would fit in on “Best Serial Killer Books”.