Off the Rails?

Today I finished 'The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry', the latest book by journalist and documentary filmmaker  Jon Ronson.

This is the second book I've read by Mr Ronson - I read 'Them: Adventures with Extremists' many years ago and was absolutely fascinated by it.  I haven't read 'The Men who Stare at Goats', the book which formed the basis of the George Clooney film, mainly because I wasn't that interested by the subject matter, but 'The Psychopath Test' caught my eye in one of the weekend papers.

'The Psychopath Test'
by Jon Ronson
(Picador, 2011)

'The Psychopath Test' is exactly what it says it is - a whistlestop journey through the madness industry.  The backbone theme of the book is Dr Bob Hare's checklist of symptoms displayed by psychopaths, but the book explores broader ideas such as the commodification of madness for entertainment or commercial gain, attempts at curing psychopaths and the dangers of labelling.  Don't get me wrong, though, although the ideas that come up can be quite deep and could be heavy going, the writing style is friendly and very weekend newspapery, which makes this book (stylistically at least) a very easy read.

As with 'Them', this book is very much about people and it's Mr Ronson's interest in people and curiosity about what he'll find around the next bend in the tracks that makes this book so readable.  The author's ideas develop with each person he meets and his persistent desire to understand helps his journey - and the book - unfold.

In a way, this is a bit of a paradox of a book.  Somehow, the author has taken quite scary subject matter (insanity, murderers, violent criminals, psychologists who get it wrong, the possibility that the people who run society could be psychopaths...) and real life stories which would more usually be found in true crime books and made them into a relatively friendly and easy going read.  I quite happily steamed through it over a series of lunch breaks, usually reading a chapter at a time, so it was great from that perspective!  Reading it before bed didn't really bother me either.

Unfortunately, overall it did make me feel like I was getting the briefest of stopovers at each branch of enquiry and I do feel as though I would've liked certain ideas to be explored in more depth, like the presence of high densities of psychopaths in the higher echelons of society, for example.

Also, I was left with one unanswered question at the end of the book; 'What about female psychopaths?'  I doubt it was intentional, but it seemed that all the case studies discussed were men, but I don't recall any mention of if/why there are fewer female psychopaths.  It would be crazy to think there aren't any at all!

On the whole, though, I actually enjoyed this book.  I wouldn't recommend it to everybody (I know I'm a bit of a softy, but my stomach did churn in a few places to say the least.), but if you're curious about these sorts of things, it is a good and interesting read.  It's not the end of the journey, but there are a network of other books and sources mentioned so that if your interest is sparked in a particular area, you can look into it further.  I suspect I probably will.

Now to decide where I'm off to next!