Gary

by Brian Masters

The author has written 14 other books including "Killing For Company", "The Case Of Dennis Nilsen" and "The Passion of John Aspinall". This is an account of his own relationship with Gary, a disturbed and violent teenager who had been abandoned by his own father and had lost his mother when he was ten. Gary was emotionally and educationally retarded, but the author recognized his craving for acceptance and approval. He took on the role of foster-father to Gary in the hope that steady effort from the boy at school, combined with extra tuition, domestic routine and his own influence would enable the adolescent to develop self-esteem and emotional stability. The relationship between the author and Gary was complicated - half alliance and half a battle of wills - and this account tells how every small victory was followed by setbacks, and how Gary's aggressive and manipulative tendencies continually re-emerged. It is a portrait of a vulnerable boy, and the author's analysis of his own reactions and motives.

Hardcover

Published September 6, 1990

About the author

Brian Masters is a British writer best known for his biographies of mass murderers, including Killing for Company, on Dennis Nilsen; The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer; She Must Have Known, on Rosemary West; and The Evil That Men Do. He has also written about the British aristocracy and worked as a translator.