Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder
This month I’m looking at murder, making this weeks book Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder by Rachel McCarthy James. So lets do this!
This book is a very brief history of the axe, and a few moments in time when it’s been used for something other than chopping wood. Starting with the beginning, a Stone Hand Axe, used in 430,000 BCE. And there is ample reason from the bone pit at La Sima de los Huesos to believe that the owner of Cranium 17 was murdered by such an axe. But...the author spends a lot of time speculating about the why. Which I get. It’s natural to want to understand why something happened. But James says they were just like you or I...were they? How much can we really know about a 430,000 year old body? James says “There are, arguably, good reasons to strike someone twice in the head with a sharp rock. Tyranny, slavery, abuse—sometimes a person must defend their life and freedom with arms.”
A pretty thought...but I get the feeling she does not apply that metric equally to all.
From there, she moves through different styles of axe and when they were used, initially covering when governments used them to slaughter their people, before moving into the 19th century and when they began to be used one on one, murder style.
And I’m ok with that...mostly. Historically and statistically the number one killer of people everywhere has been their own governments. It’s actually a bit anti-climactic though, I was expecting more gruesome details, which comes with the pop-culture introduction of the concept of Axe Murderer, which is introduced in chapter nine...of a twelve chapter book. Now, it is a big one, it would be virtually impossible to write a book about axe murder and NOT mention Lizzie Borden. But still...for a history of axe murder, I would have expected more Lizzie Borden, and less the axe is a symbol of power that governments used to slaughter their citizens.
And then she gets political. I mean...yes, governments slaughter their people. But in trying to move through a timeline, she dips into Norse mythology as one of her stories, quoting from the Prose Edda, specifically The Saga of Erik the Red and The Saga of the Greenlanders when discussing Freydis Eriksdotter. Now, she may or may not have existed, but with 430,000 years of history, James couldn’t find an actual, known crime to match with the Iron Shipbuilding Axe with which she introduced chapter 5?
And in discussing the Pelekys, a Greek axe, my real irritation kicked in, as James waxes poetic on the ‘queerness’ of...Hercules. Yep. Greek Hero Hercules was apparently a closeted trans woman. Which is a conclusion James reaches based on Hercules being forced to wear women’s clothing, and giving his wife Omphale, the axe of the Amazon queen Hippolyte….because Omphale is the “top” in the relationship. Or maybe because Omphale was NOT his wife...but she was a queen. And an axe taken from one queen is a fitting gift for another queen.
Like...on what fucking planet does 21st century political ideology belong in 3000 year old Greek/Roman Mythology? I didn’t like when that idiot tried to trans up a FEMALE viking warrior a few years ago, and I don’t like modern day idiocy cast back on ancient myths, for no reason other than to pander to a tiny demographic of EXTREMELY loud assholes.
Let’s see, what else irritated me about this this book.
Oh! That same chapter, she says “Tyrants could be almost beloved in the sixth century BCE.”...but then goes on to say that the beloved tyrant Miltiades built a wall to protect the Gallipoli peninsula from outside forces...but building a wall is “classic tyrant behavior.” Never mind that walls have been built for thousands of years to PROTECT a citizenry against invading forces….like in China...or Baghdad. Or every medieval fortification EVER. Walls are for the protection of a people from invaders. Which the ancient Greeks knew. But only tyrants build them.
She goes out of her way to include a chapter about how the famous story of George Washington and the Cherry Tree was false, which literally everyone already knows, just so she can include a story about one of Washington’s failed early campaigns...and why? Because Tanacharison, one of the tribal leaders at the time, used a tomahawk to pick a fight with the French, which led to the French and Indian wars of the 18th century.
She includes the story of William Tillman, who, yes, used an axe to commit “murder.” Although in his case, you could argue it was NOT murder, it was an act of self-defense. See Tillman was a cook on a Union ship at the start of the Civil War and that ship was captured by the Confederates. Tillman was black. He was born a free black man. Which meant absolutely nothing to the Confederates and Tillman overheard them talking about selling him in Charleston when they got to port. So when he took his hatchet and killed the crew, one could argue 1. Act of War, and 2. Self-Defense. But I wouldn’t call it murder. I’m pretty sure James included this story just so she could pull the zinger that the confederate flag was “an enduring symbol of hatred.”
I would argue the communist flag is even more so, yet she chose NOT to include the murder of Leon Trotsky with an Ice Axe in Mexico City in 1940.
When discussing the murder at Taliesen, Frank Lloyd Wrights architectural masterpiece, she mentions that Wrights lover was influenced by Swedish feminist Ellen Key, and says “like a lot of white feminists from all waves, Key could be racist.”
Bitch what!?! Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony...hell, the entire women’s suffrage movement STARTED as an abolitionist movement. But, you know, all white people are bad. It couldn’t possibly be that the murderer at the Prairie House was simply mentally ill. So much so his own wife ran terrified from him. It has to be the fault of white people.
But wait, there’s more! See, in her epilogue, she talks about a very RECENT axe murder, one in Kansas City, MO. The killer was Mario Markworth, and after an admittedly horrible start in life, where he was neglected, starved and sexually abused while in the care of the state of MO, Mario was adopted by Doug and Terssa Markworth. Who were white. Mario was black. And this audacious bitch says “Terssa’s self published memoir...does not use the word racism once...and scoffs at the idea her white privilege could have negatively affected her adopted children.” I think being sexually abused as a child negatively affected him a hell of a lot more than a white adopted mother….but nope...because this kind woman who gave him a loving home, kept him safe and protected from harm...was a racist bitch who only adopted a child of color to make herself feel better in her privilege.
You gotta wonder how James feels about Josephine Baker, who famously adopted 12 children herself from all races and colors...that’s probably fine because Baker was black and did it for love.
But the real cap on the epilogue, was when she makes excuses for Mario, saying “If Mario wanted to kill two people, he would have set about getting a gun. Firearms aren’t much more difficult than axes to obtain.”
Bet. You do have to fill out an ATF mandated questionnaire which asks questions about your mental health and drug use...oh...oh wait...She actually includes that he was a marijuana user. But that could not POSSIBLY have been a contributing factor. Nor could his belief that he “felt picked on” by the other tenants in his apartment complex. It’s all his white mother’s fault for not admitting her racism.
Mario didn’t intend to use the axe….but he was just walking around with it. Which is a totally normal thing to do in August in 2019 in a highly urban area, when one does not have a fireplace or any reason to own an axe.
I really wanted to like this book. But I find the inclusion of her blatant political pandering appalling, her logical leaps wholly fallacious, and her excusing of crime based solely on race, rather than the facts of the case disgusting.
Review is up on YouTube and Rumble.
