Selfish, Little: The Annotated Lesley Ann Downey

by Peter Sotos

In this unnerving new book, cult author Peter Sotos examines the brutal murder of Lesley Ann Downey at the hands of British "Moors Murderers" Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. With frank, inimitable prose and self-deprecating wit, Sotos interweaves numerous accounts - culled from tabloids, memoirs, and television specials - of the sensational crime and its devastating aftermath with analogous excerpts from recent headlines, explicit erotic fantasies, and graphic descriptions of degrading, often-anonymous carnal encounters. Sotos persistently seeks the truth where others are afraid to look, and discovers an implicit pornography in the public lamentations of Downey's grieving mother, media coverage of lurid sex crimes, and journalistic forays into the private lives of sex offenders. Replete with autobiographic tales of sexual excess, telling interviews, and thoughtful musings on crime, art, and pornography, Selfish, Little is a surreal "smorgasbord of unabashed vulgarity."

Genres: True Crime, Horror, Crime, American

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Peter Sotos (born April 17, 1960) is a Chicago-born writer who has contributed an unprecedented examination of the peculiar motivations of sadistic sexual criminals. His works are often cited as conveying an uncanny understanding of myriad aspects of pornography. Most of his writings have focused on sexually violent pornography, particularly of that involving children. His writings are also considered by many to be social criticism often commenting on the hypocritical way media handles these issues.

In 1984, while attending The Art Institute of Chicago, Sotos began producing a self-published newsletter or "fanzine" named Pure, notable as the first zine dedicated to serial killer lore. Much of the text and pictures in Pure were photocopied images from major newspapers and other print media. Sotos also used a photocopy from a magazine of child pornography as the cover of issue#2 of Pure. In 1986 this cover led to his arrest and charges of obscenity and possession of child pornography. The charges of obscenity were dropped, but Sotos eventually pled guilty to the possession charge and received a suspended sentence. Sotos was the first person in the United States ever to be charged for owning child pornography.

Sotos' writings explore sadistic and pedophilic sexual impulses in their many, often hidden, guises. Often using first person narratives, his prose takes on the point of view of the sexual predator. Despite his early legal troubles, and the seemingly fatal stigma of falsely being labeled a pedophile, Sotos continues to garner support for his ideas and literary output.

He was until 2003 a seminal member of the industrial noise band Whitehouse.

Reviews

[Anita Dalton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sotos is hard for me to read. He is relentless. I have to put him down and come back to him. I can never read him in one go. He upsets me. He makes me sick. At times, I do not understand him and when I do, it bothers me because it makes me wonder about the sickness that lurks in my own soul. But I comfort myself that what is happening to me is that Sotos is provoking a reaction, not a realization, which is why I think this book exists.

I expose myself to Peter Sotos for the same reasons I expose myself to any number of artistic darknesses: I have to. It is a compulsion and one I gave up fighting years ago. Sotos leaves me bewildered, unsure about what I just read. Parts of the book are unclear. Was it truth, a remembrance of actual sexual couplings? Fantasy? Is he describing himself or is it a fiction? And would knowing the truth make any difference?

I don’t know. Read the rest of the review here.

[Andrew Nolan]

Like watching paint dry. Paint in the shape of an eternity of glory holes, dead children, and perpetual self-loathing.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

My introduction to Sotos. Thank you for the suggestion, Mr. Revert. Clearly a 'love it or hate it' book. This book is icky, folks!

[julian ortega · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went into this book curious to see if Sotos would cover the Moors Murders in any biographical capacity. What I got was a bizarrely intimate trip down the psyche of a deeply broken man.

Lesley Ann is purity in a way Sotos knows himself to have been robbed of. She lived and died pure — against the odds, against the lurid cause of death. She is purity in a way Sotos wants so desperately to understand, and in that desperation, her memory is the only thing keeping Sotos tied to some semblance of morality.

I can’t tell you what this book is about because it’s not about anything. It’s as unfiltered and random as the rest of Sotos’ catalogue. Sometimes, it’s sporadic depictions of brutal, loveless sex and abuse; other times, it’s Sotos recounting the reception Pure received and how often he jerks off. There’s no through line, but you’re not here for cohesion if you’re reading Sotos.

Do not read it if you’re looking for true crime material, you aren’t getting that here. You are reading what is functionally the diary of a man whose own abuse has led him into the role of abuser, with the only thing bringing him back to reality being Lesley Ann Downey and her murder.

[Fishface · Rating 1 out of 5]

The ad copy for this book totally misrepresented what I found between the covers. And I mean "between the covers" in both senses. Imagine if Holden Caulfield had grown up to be a repugnantly hateful, racist filth dispenser and sex addict who dabbles in just about everything you can think of that's vile. You know a book is depraved when the least disturbing sections are the protagonist's commentaries on pornographic child murder. Oh, and this book has so little to do with Lesley Ann Downey that there's no reason for her name to be on the cover of the book.

[Brian Foley · Rating 2 out of 5]

this is my membership card into the worst of all people club.
You don't read this book, you wade in it.
It is so heavily disturbed and disturbing, you actually get a jolt when catching a glimpse of Sotos exhibiting normal human feeling. It should be a drinking game, but i dont think you'd get too drunk. I blame Brendan Stousy for this.

But really though, Sotos is an interst and we need him.

[Stella · Rating 2 out of 5]

He admits to eating his own jizz in this one I guess that’s pretty interesting

[Jaret Ferratusco · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you absolutely must never sleep peacefully again.

Peter Sotos writes books to study. In them, the horror and the helplessness of an embittered naive species become the target of a wrath so profound the reader wishes they were never born as a human being. This book rattles with fevered observations on an overpowering loss of direction in the collective morality of the world, and signposts like Peter Sotos turn into freeway offramp billboards, leading one into the pure darkness of a final night ever.

[Doug Brunell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sotos is not for everyone. In fact, few people can handle the brutal places his writing takes readers. That raw, ugly, hateful place is a venue few want to walk near, let alone dwell, but Sotos forces readers to go there. And with Selfish, Little he puts them in a position of no escape.

Those interested in an investigative procedural or examination of the Lesley Ann Downey won't get the what they are expecting. It is, in a very roundabout way, those very things but from a very personal and unique perspective. It is designed not as a factual look at Downey, but as a personal journey that all comes back to the reader and his or her feelings and perspectives on some very rough subjects. To say you are put into the "mind of a killer" is hyperbole, but you are pushed to go to some places where most people won't even admit exist inside themselves.

Sotos is the only writer really doing this kind of work. It's not true crime or any other genre. It is, however, an almost thorough understanding of things that a true crime work could never possibly delve into, and that alone makes this worth reading. Predator. Prey. Pornography. Truth. Victim. Witness. Reading this makes you question the hidden world around you, and more importantly, yourself.

[Elsinore · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you, like most people, came across this book in one of those "Most disturbing books ever written" tier lists, venture no further, lest you risk getting bored to death.

There are two types of information in this book:
1) Peter Sotos lore
2) His hot takes on the Moors murders, pornography and sensationalism

Sotos’s language is striking, of course, but if you’ve read one of his books - you’ve read them all. There's only so much cum, piss, shit, torn holes, gay men, and molested children that you can describe before it gets really repetitive. And repetitive it gets indeed, so repetitive that I struggled to finish the book. Selfish, Little? More like Boring, Long, because this book goes on about its mediocre subject matter for entirely too many pages.

I've read Selfish, Little both in a French translation and in English, and the French-language edition is pretty faithful to the original text. That's all I can say about this book. If for some reason you want to feel shocked and outraged, read Pure, at least it's shorter than this snoozefest.

[Alex Osman · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's a threshold to shock where when you try so hard to go past it and really disturb your reader, it all becomes goofy and boring and achieves the opposite effect. And maybe Sotos is saying something with that, how mind-numbing and meandering it all becomes, I don't know, but his work just isn't for me

[Judy Valentino · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fuck you, Peter Sotos, you genius.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sotos combines intense self-loathing and misanthropy with sexual ecstasy gained from humiliation and inflicting pain on others. Vile and sadistic are actually fairly objective terms to describe his writing and topics, topics that include child pornography, brutal and anonymous homosexual hook-ups, and merely sordid heterosexual couplings. Sotos writes well, and he gives what I assume to be an exacting picture of the contradicts, conflicts, and volatile urges of men (and one woman) possessed of wretched psyches. Sotos tells us not to look to bad childhoods as an excuse for the behaviors detailed here--the courts don't buy it, and neither do sexual predators. Predation is compulsive--forget about "curing" it. People like this elicit neither my sympathy or empathy--and I don't think Sotos is asking for either. First-hand insight into these compulsions are unlikely to mitigate anybody's feelings about or rational discussions of deviancy.

[kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

more blistering hate from Peter Sotos! perhaps it's self-indulgent revelation, perhaps it's not and you either love it or hate it ... me, i love it. guiltily, perhaps, but love it i do.