And now for something a little different...

May I Have You for Dinner?

by Jennifer M. Brown, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 3/21/2005

Readers are devouring Cannibal: The True Story Behind the Maneater of Rotenburg by Lois Jones. Released in January as a paperback original from Berkley, the book has already sold more than 4,700 copies, according to editor Allison McCabe--with no publicity. Still, somebody was writing about the book, because a radio show host who contacted McCabe said he'd heard about it online. McCabe could only take his word for it: she herself had studiously avoided the cannibal Web sites "because they are so appalling, and because I didn't want to be on the FBI's 'most wanted' [list]," she says.

She learned of Armin Meiwes--a German who advertised online for someone to be willingly eaten alive, found his victim (Bernd Juergen Brandes), slaughtered and ate him--when his December 2003 murder trial hit the national media. McCabe approached Lois Jones, a British journalist based in Germany, about writing a book based on the bizarre events.

McCabe, who will never again eat turkey chili (her lunch fare as she edited the chapter in which Meiwes dines on his victim), has nonetheless come back for seconds. She has signed up Death by Cannibal, a collection of profiles of several convicted American cannibals, due out from Berkley in June 2006.

This article originally appeared in the March 21, 2005 issue of PW Daily.

PublishersWeekly.com - May I Have You for Dinner?