The media coverage of the story of Andrew Cunanan–the 27-year-old gay man whose 1997 cross-country killing spree ended only when he killed himself–became nearly as fascinating and incomprehensible as the crimes themselves. When he first struck, the mainstream press was trumpeting its open-mindedness on gay issues by gleefully participating in the publicity surrounding Ellen DeGeneres’s protracted coming-out stunt. But after Cunanan killed his third victim, Chicago real estate developer Lee Miglin, reporters appeared to time-warp back to the 1950s, clumsily issuing ominous warnings about a “homicidal homosexual” on the loose.
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Reporters moved on to Princess Diana’s death, then to Monica and Bill. Cunanan receded into the mists of public memory. But two new books have pulled him back, ostensibly to examine his case from the broader perspective afforded by time and in-depth research. Due to their almost simultaneous publication, the books will inevitably be pitted against each other. Maureen Orth’s Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History is a solid, though flawed, true-crime potboiler. Gary Indiana’s Three Month Fever: The Andrew Cunanan Story is another thing altogether–an attempt to put a human face on a killer, a difficult task given how much Cunanan’s life has been misrepresented. It’s a bravura performance of wit, venom, and mostly empathy for Cunanan.
Vulgar Favors was published a couple of weeks ahead of Three Month Fever, and, not surprisingly, it has received the lion’s share of attention. Orth has been associated with the story since the death of Versace; when he was killed she was working on an article about Cunanan for Vanity Fair and instantly became a much-televised authority on the subject. Her Vanity Fair pieces stood head and shoulders above other reports, eschewing sensationalism and daring to doubt the official line that the Miglin killing was a random crime. Vulgar Favors certainly exhibits flashes of the brilliance found in her magazine articles, particularly when it introduces us to Cunanan’s parents. Orth catches up with his mother, MaryAnn, in a dilapidated San Diego-area bungalow. Despite the staggering evidence to the contrary, MaryAnn maintains that Andrew wasn’t a killer. The account of their visit is masterfully matter-of-fact: “Before her visitors go, MaryAnn wants snapshots taken. She imitates movie stars, posing with her hand on her hip, turning for a three-quarter view, throwing her head back over her shoulder. She demands, ‘Who am I? Don’t you remember Silvana Mangano? Don’t you remember Anna Magnani?’ As she recalls these fifties and sixties Italian actresses, MaryAnn suddenly smolders with hostility. ‘I’m ugly but I’m the actress, right?’ she implores. ‘Right?’”
Orth also goes out of her way to exhibit a smug distaste for everyone who’s tried to “cash in on the tragedy”–everyone but her, that is. She’s disdainful of those who’ve claimed closer relationships to Cunanan than they really had, yet she begins her book by speculating that two hang-up calls she received might have been from Cunanan, on the basis of the caller’s “gay male voice” and the fact that Vanity Fair was Cunanan’s favorite magazine.
Indiana steps over a significant line in journalism by speaking for his subjects, then goes quite a bit further. He seems to have had little choice in the matter: Trail and Madson had plenty of friends who were willing to talk, but associates of Miglin and Versace were tight-lipped. (The fourth victim, cemetery caretaker William Reese, was apparently killed for his truck and played no other role in Cunanan’s life or imagination.) Three Month Fever brazenly speculates that Cunanan and Miglin were acquainted–though his family and associates adamantly deny it–and, in a hypothetical TV-movie-within-the-book, envisions their initial meeting during an amateur performance of South Pacific at a private party for affluent gays: “Gliding into view, on stage, from Chicago, in the role of Bloody Mary, bedecked in a coconut brassiere and citrus green acetate hula skirt, is the imperishably handsome and very fetching Windy City songbird and pioneer real-estate developer….Let’s have a nice welcoming round of applause for the musical stylings of Miss…Lee…Miglin!”
