40 pages • 1 hour read
Michelle McNamaraI'll Be Gone in the Dark
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Making of a Killer
One of the major themes in I’ll Be Gone in the Dark is how a criminal like the Golden State Killer evolves from a burglar into a serial killer. Though the GSK’s identity is unknown, he leaves behind numerous pieces of evidence that offers McNamara insight into his crimes. The portrait McNamara creates is one of a criminal tormented by violent sexual fantasies. Each time the GSK commits a crime, he needs to increase the level of brutality in order to achieve the same states of euphoria and pleasure.
McNamara suggests that the GSK begins his crime spree as a burglar, known as the Ransacker (though the link between the two criminals is not conclusive). As the Ransacker, the GSK breaks in to numerous homes throughout Visalia. Instead of stealing items, however, the GSK trashes the house, often arranging woman’s underwear throughout the home. In these crimes, the GSK seems motivated by a desire to violate homeowners’ sense of security and safety. Six months after his crime spree in Visalia, the GSK begins committing crimes in Sacramento. Breaking into peoples’ homes is no longer enough to provide the GSK with his desired thrills. Instead, the GSK begins to rape women, first targeting single women before moving onto couples.
As the GSK commits numerous rapes in the East Bay area, his drive for violence only seems to escalate. McNamara writes that the GSK “require[ed] more terror in his victims’ eyes to get off,” and the GSK begins to threaten to murder the couples as he assaults them (160). The GSK doesn’t begin to actually kill until after a failed assault attempt in Southern California in 1979, which results in the GSK almost being caught by police. After this incident, the GSK murders each couple after his assault—presumably due both to his need for security as well as his ever-growing hunger for violence.
The Thrill of the Search
In addition to dissecting the motives of a killer, McNamara spends much of I’ll Be Gone in the Dark trying to understand the psychology of individuals driven to catch killers. McNamara profiles a number of individuals who, similar to herself, devote countless hours and energy to searching for clues to the GSK’s identity. Some of these individuals, such as Larry Pool or Paul Holes, are professional detectives assigned to the GSK case. Even so, they persevere where other detectives would have given up, presuming the GSK to be dead or arrested for another crime. Pool and Holes refuse to give up the chase. McNamara also describes a number of amateur sleuths not employed by law enforcement who investigate possible leads in their spare time. These individuals include McNamara as well as members of an online forum, such as the “Social Worker” and the “Kid” (Paul Haynes).
McNamara recognizes that the professional and amateur detectives share a similarly single-minded need to unmask the GSK. The compulsion can grow so great as to dominate these individuals’ lives and threaten their personal relationships. McNamara argues that these individuals’ need to uncover the GSK comes from an almost animalistic instinct:
What I always think about, I told him, are experiments that show that animals in captivity would rather have to search for their food than have it given to them. Seeking is the lever that tips our dopamine gush. (175)
For McNamara, her need to chase after the GSK comes as much from a desire for justice as it does from an enjoyment of the act of seeking. McNamara’s pursuit of the GSK is like a hunt for her, providing her with a sense of thrill. The more that the GSK eludes McNamara’s grasp, the more compelled she feels to chase after him.
McNamara notes that, in some ways, her compulsive need to chase after the GSK mimics the killer’s own compulsive pursuit of his victims. Both the GSK and McNamara are obsessed with carefully observing their targets: as she writes, they both “suffer from the same affliction” (289). McNamara suggests that the only difference might be how she and the GSK each respectively channel their compulsions: McNamara for justice, and the GSK for violence.
