Where are you going? To the crime library, Batman

CrimeLibrary.com has a very informative backgrounder on Charles Schmid, 60's serial killer and fabled "Pied Piper of Tucson". A Life magazine article on "Schmitty" inspired Joyce Carol Oates to create Arnold Friend, the demonic antagonist of her great short story "Where are Going, Where Have you Been?", which I'm covering in my lit classes this week. The story combines at least four thematic strains in unsettling ways: the illusory, romantic fantasies of adolescent girls coming of age; the victimization of women; the violent, manipulative psychology of the American serial killer; and the dreamlike allegorical power of all-knowing evil.