Interview with a Cannibal: The Secret Life of the Monster of Rotenburg

Stampf, a prominent German filmmaker and journalist, reveals the harrowing true-life account of a German computer company employee, Armin Meiwes, who killed a willing victim, Bernd Brandes, and ate him in a fetish ritual. Interviewing Meiwes in 30 sessions at a high-security prison, the author discovers a shy, pleasant man who entered into an agreement with a bisexual man he met on the Internet who wanted to be butchered and consumed. Stampf probes Meiwes's emotional isolation and the homoerotic fantasies of both killer and victim through talks with family, friends and experts, entering some very dark places of gay underground sadomasochistic sex rituals. Prepared with the aid of criminal profiler Brown, this bizarre and gruesome book spares no detail of the crime and the troubled psyches of the cannibal and the victim. It is not for the faint of heart. (Nov.)