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A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion

3.24 of 5 stars 3.24 · rating details · 481 ratings · 124 reviews

From the acclaimed author of Atticus and Mariette in Ecstasy comes a stylish novel set in the hard-drinking, fast-living New York City of the Jazz Age that follows two lovers in a torrid affair on an arc of murder and sexual self-destruction. Based on a real case whose lurid details scandalized Americans in 1927 and sold millions of newspapers, acclaimed novelist Ron Hanse...more

Hardcover, 256 pages

Published June 14th 2011 by Scribner (first published June 7th 2011)

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Jul 14, 2011 Irene rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: library-book

In an era when prohibition was casually ignored, a number of delusional women and men sought further escape from the mediocrity of daily life through occasional sexual dalliances, but none as sensationally provocative as that of Ruth Snyder and Judd Grey, nor with predictable ordinary consequences.

Ron Hansen skillfully weaves an astonishingly well-researched, yet captivating tale that riveted a nation in 1925, and from beginning to end, he expertly transports the reader to the historically infa...more

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Mar 06, 2013 Julie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, usa-historical, mystery-crime-thriller

In 1987 I went on a two-book true crime reading spree. Ann Rule had just published Small Sacrifices about Oregon mother Diane Downs, who murdered her three children in 1983. From there, I went to Ann's first blockbuster thriller The Stranger Beside Me: Ted Bundy - The Shocking Inside Story (a triple threat title, that). Having sated my morbid curiosity about sociopaths and psychopaths (particularly those bred and raised in the Pacific Northwest), I left behind the world of true crime.

Until last...more

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Oct 06, 2012 Steve rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

For some reason, I didn't notice that this book was based on a true story till I was about half way through it. I guess I didn't read the back of it. So it seemed to me a bit loosely drawn, and the characters a bit vague and cliched. But it any case, it came together for me about half way through, about the time that woman, Ruth Snyder, and her lover, Judd Gray, actually murder Ruth's husband. That murder, though Ruth especially thinks is really well-planned, is something of a joke, and it's cle...more

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Jan 31, 2012 Stephen rated it 3 of 5 stars

I came to this, my first Ron Hansen novel, after hearing a positive review on French television of the recently released French translation. "A Wild Sure of Guilty Passion" was a compelling read. Based on a 1927 murder in New York State, which has already been memorialized in the classic 1944 Billy Wilder movie "Double Indemnity," Hansen proves very adept both at recreating an earlier period and at portraying how a spiral of human weakness can lead to tragic results. The mystery at the heart of...more

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Nov 23, 2011 John Bellamy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Although a longtime fan of Ron Hansen’s novels I must confess that this fictionalization of the Albert Snyder murder melodrama provokes two contradictory reactions. As a true crime writer myself, I admire his skill in recreating one of the most notorious—i. e., well-publicized—homicides of the Roaring 20s. His grasp of the principal characters of this sordid story and his mastery of its many details is sure and deftly arranged. But notwithstanding his impressive gifts as a novelist, his narrati...more Although a longtime fan of Ron Hansen’s novels I must confess that this fictionalization of the Albert Snyder murder melodrama provokes two contradictory reactions. As a true crime writer myself, I admire his skill in recreating one of the most notorious—i. e., well-publicized—homicides of the Roaring 20s. His grasp of the principal characters of this sordid story and his mastery of its many details is sure and deftly arranged. But notwithstanding his impressive gifts as a novelist, his narrative provides little that could not be furnished by a straightforward non-fiction treatment of the case. It is a commonplace to praise a non-fiction work with the phrase, “it reads like fiction.” Unfortunately, what we have here is fiction that reads too much like non-fiction. The problem, I think, lies in the very nature of the subject matter. Master journalist Damon Runyon, who was present at the dual murder trial of hapless killers Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray, aptly labeled it “The Dumbbell Murder” and dismissed it as a slaying “that for sheer stupidity and brutality have seldom been equaled in the history of crime.” Back in 1927, restless, slutty Queens housewife Ruth inevitably found her perfect soul mate: alcoholic and easily dominated, if guilt-wracked, New Jersey corset salesman Judd Gray. Eventually, they collaborated in one of the most idiotically planned and poorly executed murders since the marathon taking-off of Rasputin. Almost immediately identified as her husband’s killers, Ruth and Judd soon turned on each other and were duly tried and executed by the State of New York. Hansen struggles mightily to endow them with humanity and a consistently pathetic mundaneness but his efforts are ultimately defeated by the reality of his two repulsive principals. They were, as his narrative makes abundantly clear, what my clear-sighted mother used to term “cheap” people, and their squalid saga will always be more suitable as tabloid fare than the basis of fiction or even the higher class of true crime non-fiction. That said, Hansen’s relentless and fact-stuffed narrative is an entertaining introduction to what Runyon derided as “the most imperfect crime on record . . . . cruel, atrocious and unspeakably dumb.”(less)

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Sep 03, 2011 Bob Mustin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Here’s one thing I’ve learned from several years of reading, analyzing (and enjoying) historical fiction: while it should lean heavily on the story’s real-life history, the story will read best when it adheres to one of the structures of good fiction. Hansen has always been amazingly good at creating vivid storylines (witness his books adapted to other creative media: Atticus and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford as cinema, and Mariette in Ecstasy as staged drama). Thus...more Here’s one thing I’ve learned from several years of reading, analyzing (and enjoying) historical fiction: while it should lean heavily on the story’s real-life history, the story will read best when it adheres to one of the structures of good fiction. Hansen has always been amazingly good at creating vivid storylines (witness his books adapted to other creative media: Atticus and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford as cinema, and Mariette in Ecstasy as staged drama). Thus the writing of this underappreciated novelist has made me one of his most ardent fans. But I’m beginning to feel that over the last two books he’s losing his mojo. A look at Guilty Passion will give you an idea why.

This real life drama comes from the intersection of the lives of corset salesman Henry Judd Gray and married hottie Ruth Brown Snyder. Judd and Ruth meet casually through a mutual friend, and soon sexy sparks are flying. But their liaison is more than sexual heat – Ruth is grooming Judd to be the murderer of her abusive, drunken husband, Albert.
Both Ruth and Judd are stuck in loveless marriages, and while Ruth has ample reason to escape her marriage to Albert, Judd’s is simply common, boring, and sexless.
In Hansen’s hands, Judd and Ruth achieve a level of eroticism and emotional refuge perhaps uncommon in the 1920s. As it becomes clear that Ruth is moving Judd to at least assist in killing Albert (she admits to several failed attempts at killing him), Judd becomes the passively moral force in their murder plans, while Ruth becomes the amoral schemer. Here, in the middle section of the book is where Hansen’s novelistic skills shine. This is where fiction can take the reader in a new, intimate direction, as Hansen did in Hitler’s Niece, while adhering to the spirit of historical fact.

What fails this reader are the books first few pages, and the last three chapters, in which the author resorts to paraphrasing research information on their intersected lives and the resulting crime. All right, it is non-fiction in fictive clothing, so what’s the problem? Primarily the ending, where Hansen resorts to a distancing journalistic style based in researched facts. There are many unanswered questions concerning Ruth and Judd’s romantic entanglement, questions that can chase such intimacy in different novelistic directions. Here, the primary one offered is How did Judd and Ruth really feel about one another? i.e., for instance, had the murder gone unsolved, would their sexual connection have resulted in some enduring form of love?

The value of superimposing fiction over real life is to give a deeply intimate view of historical events and characters, a view that historical fact rarely offers. In Guilty Passion, Hansen takes us to the answer’s precipice, but he doesn’t allow us to peer over it.
(less)

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Aug 03, 2011 Michelle rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book was based on the real-life case that gave rise to The Postman Always Rings Twice, to double-indeminity being part of the lingo, and, I would've thought, the musical Chicago, but that was already on Broadway when the "dumbbell murder" case came to court (and may, indeed, have given Ruth Snyder the inspiration for it).

Ron Hansen takes what has to have been one of the most inept coverups of one of the most sensational murders of all time and makes it compulsively readable fiction. Using t...more

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Jul 30, 2011 Hood rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Nothing says Summer like a good murder story. Maybe it’s the cold-bloodedness of it all that helps to beat the heat; perhaps it’s simply that sweat is easier to endure when it’s shared with someone who’s sweating death. Whatever it is, there are few things more refreshing when the temperature rises than witnessing somebody fall.

When you make that a few somebodies, well, even Miami’s steamy, sultry dog days can become almost pleasant, unless of course you’re on the receiving end of a shotgun, a g...more

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Jul 17, 2011 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

If it seems the Casey Anthony trail has received undue press it has always been thus; we Americans have always been captivated by scandal. Ron Hansen’s latest novel, A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion harkens back to a time when a murder trial was also the focal point of every newspaper in America. The murder of Albert Snyder in 1927 by his wife Ruth Snyder and her lover Judd Gray is once again recreated by Hansen. The murder and its subsequent trial have inspired works such as Double Indemnity and...more

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Jul 15, 2011 christa rated it 3 of 5 stars

If ever a novel was to be played out in black and white, fogged with cigarette smoke, with images of spinning newspaper headlines, it would be Ron Hansen's "A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion," the writer's fictional account of a highly publicized 1920s murder in New York City.

Hansen gets to the guts early. In the opening scene, 9-year-old Lorraine Snyder wakes up to find her mother bound in the hallway. Ruth Snyder tells the little girl to forget about untying her, go find a neighbor to help. Her...more If ever a novel was to be played out in black and white, fogged with cigarette smoke, with images of spinning newspaper headlines, it would be Ron Hansen's "A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion," the writer's fictional account of a highly publicized 1920s murder in New York City.

Hansen gets to the guts early. In the opening scene, 9-year-old Lorraine Snyder wakes up to find her mother bound in the hallway. Ruth Snyder tells the little girl to forget about untying her, go find a neighbor to help. Her husband Albert is found dead in their bedroom amid a chaotic and nonsensical crime scene and Ruth doesn't do a very good job of hiding her involvement and that of her dippy married lover Judd Gray.

Flashback to the meeting between Ruth and Judd. The former is a chesty young sex kitten, a real flirt with a soprano purr, a social woman married to a preoccupied man with hobbies she doesn't share. Judd is a lingerie salesman with tortoise shell glasses, a people person who has fallen into a loveless rut with his wife Isabel. His live-in mother-in-law makes his home life even less satisfying with her cutting remarks about how much he travels and drinks. They meet through a mutual friend and fall into a wild affair, messing up bed sheets in Manahattan hotels as well as those along Judd's sales route.

Hansen paints Ruth as a master manipulator who easily plays the hapless Judd. She seduces him, stripping down to just her tan lines so he can apply lotion to her body in the moment that ignites the affair. Judd is a mess of guilt in the aftermath and tries in vain to stay away from her, ignoring her letters and burying the flashbacks. Ruth continues her full-court press, snags him hardcore, then wanes a bit to make sure he's hooked. She tells Judd that her husband treats her like a prostitute. That he's verbally abusive. She whips Judd into a tizzy about her home life until he's practically foaming. Then she starts dropping hints about how she wishes her husband would just die. We know from the start of this easy-reader tabloid tale that Judd will eventually comply.

At about the point Ruth reveals the death-wish she has for her husband, this novel shifts into a black comedy. Albert has unknowingly signed on for a huge life insurance policy when the jack used to prop his car gives out while he's working beneath it. A gas pipe is nicked while he's napping alone in the house. A whole host of accidents befall the character, and Ruth is always standing beneath the shaky ladder or next to the broken jack when he emerges unscathed.

It's impossible to tell, though, whether the duo's love scenes fall into the bodice ripping noir area or whether they are purposely written in a hokey way. Worst love scene of the story:

"Shall I kiss you down there?"
"Oh, that's all right. I'm ready."
"Shall I pull out?"
She pouted. "No. I like the seed inside me."
Judd walked into her and sneered a little as he entered the soft and velvety caress of Ruth. She wryly gasped with false wide eyes as if he were enormous, and he smiled as he jammed himself in and out, holding off as long as he could, and then feeling his semen lash out of him with such force he loudly cried, "Ah!"

Judd is the better-drawn of the two characters. He's feelings and intentions and misgivings are all revealed. His knows he is completely under Ruth's spell. He struggles with confessing their involvement to his wife. He tries to back out even in those final moments before beaning Albert. Ruth is a trickier call. Does she actually love Judd or is he the neon exit sign in front of a door leading to the alley. Ruth's version of her husband is one of a verbally abusive man who treats her like a prostitute. While he certainly comes across as a bit of a prick in scenes from their home life, definitely inattentive and condescending, but not nearly the monster she has cooked up. Is she smitten? Or is she a sociopath?

Also, the narration is a bit self-conscious. Most notably when Ruth goes on a business trip with Judd and rides along in the car during his sales calls. She waits for him in the car but is bored because, as the narrator says, car radios hadn't yet been invented. It's a weird detail that takes a reader out of the 1920s and into the future, looking back on the 1920s.

This story was all the rage and sold zillions of newspapers as the facts came to light and the couple landed in court. While it isn't surprising or mind-blowing or different from any of the illicit-affair-turns-grizzly stories that crop up all the time, there is a deliciousness to the Prohibition Era setting and overwrought players involved. It's not going to make anyone's brain bigger for the effort, but it is a gooey summer treat.(less)

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Jul 15, 2011 Tony rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-crime-detection

Hansen, Ron. A WILD SURGE OF GUILTY PASSION. (2010). **.
I began to lose interest in this novel early on, and barely made it to the halfway point when I put it down. It came as a shock to me that Hansen, a writer for whom I have a great deal of respect, should choose a subject such as this for his latest novel. It’s the tale of a sleazy tale of adultry that we have read about before in “Double Indemnity.” A lingerie salesman falls in love/lust with a secretary for a magazine publishing house in...more

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Aug 04, 2012 Susan Zizza Maguire rated it 4 of 5 stars

Though not the torridly compulsive page turner NPR touted, it's a good read. Based on the same 1927 true life murder that inspired Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice, A Wild Surge weaves invented scenarios with true ones (from court transcripts and a bio penned by Judd Gray) pretty seamlessly. (The NY Times Book Review stated that the title “A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion” comes from an editorial in The New York Daily Mirror written by Cornelius Vanderbilt III, and it too is pow...more

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Dec 22, 2011 Brian rated it 4 of 5 stars

Based on a sensationalized true crime that served as the inspiration to Double Indemnity and was additionally immortalized by the famous photograph of Ruth Snyder at the moment she was being electrocuted in Sing Sing, this is a well-crafted re-imagining of how the protagonists, Judd Gray and Ruth Snyder, met, embraced carnal pleasure, and eventually murdered Ruth's husband, Albert.

I found the first part of the book to be more creative and interesting primarily because it had a strong narrative...more

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Mar 10, 2013 Alyssa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Three and a half stars. I found this to be a quick, enjoyable read, and overall well written, though I am of two minds about the writing style itself. It starts out by describing the murder in a short, impersonal style, almost like a police blotter or news article, which I found very effective. As the novel backtracks to recount the events leading up the murder, though the tone towards the characters is still impersonal on the whole, it lets the characters' personalities and desires reveal thems...more

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Jul 09, 2012 Dawn rated it 2 of 5 stars

This was a bit different than what I expected. I thought it was well written, and it did keep my interest...I just wasn't expecting a memoir/real life story of two lovers who scheme to murder the mistress's husband. There was a feel to the story that made it feel a bit voyeuristic to me.
Almost as though it was an extended tabloid account of these peoples lives in-depth and in color.
Sometimes the narrator would use a phrase like "Later, the waitress would be able to clearly recall and tell the c...more

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Jun 13, 2011 Diane rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: a-favorite-read

Based on a true story from the late 1920s. Ruth Snyder was a blond, blue-eyed beauty when she married her husband Albert in 1915. Everywhere she went heads turned. Albert was thirteen years older than Ruth, and together the couple had one daughter. They lived in Queens Village, New York.

Albert was often demeaning to his wife, sometimes drinking too much, and when he had free time, he chose to spend it doing things that he alone enjoyed. Initially, Ruth tried to please her husband, but it wasn't...more

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Aug 05, 2012 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Stories of infidelity and murder have been fodder for screenwriters since the movie business began, but the 1927 case of Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray provided the back story for two of the finest film noir ever made, Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice. Ron Hansen retells the story of their illicit passion and the cold-blooded murder of Ruth’s husband Albert, in a highly-researched, though fictionalized account in A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion.

Full review here: http://mrssmithreads ...more

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Aug 07, 2011 Kay Wright rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Writing a novel that closely follows a true story is like walking a wire between truth and fiction, there must be a lot of temptation to juice it up. This sad story of sex, murder and stupidity doesn't need a lot of juicing but I never cared at all for the woman (toujours cherchez la femme)at the heart of the story and her boyfriend comes across a drunken idiot. The only thing I learned from this book about the trial of the century ala 192? is that people drank like fish during prohibition and d...more

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Aug 25, 2012 Jennifer rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: murder

I selected this book because of Ron Hansen's impressive background: a Creighton University graduate and a participant in the Iowa Writers Workshop. He is also an Omaha native. Because the story began the day of the murder, it took me some time to adjust when the author moved to the beginng of the love affair that leads to murder. Hansen definitely paints a fascinating picture of life in the mid-1920s on the East Coast and includes overwhemling details about people, places and a muderess who lead...more

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Mar 08, 2012 Allison Fraser rated it 1 of 5 stars

It's hard to say whether I disliked the book itself, or if the story was just difficult to like. It's based on a true story of a murder in the 1920s--from the first meeting and growing affair of the co-conspirators through their execution (not a spoiler--this comes out in the first 20 pages). Sounded sort of like "Chicago." But this is an ugly story. I also found myself questioning the bias of the author and feeling like he had blurred the lines between history and fiction in a way that made me...more

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Jul 24, 2011 David rated it 3 of 5 stars

Ron Hansen taught one of Karen's writing classes at Michigan "back in the day" and she was one of his prize students when he published "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, later to be a film starring Brad Pitt. He has continued to "novelize" people and events in history and A Wild Surge... is his most recent such effort.

The book deals with the scandalous Snyder/Judd affair that was the talk of the nation in 1927; it's a fast-moving story and Hansen's flair for period dial...more

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Aug 30, 2011 Karin rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book was sponsored by many, many now-defunct 1920s companies. Seriously, every single thing had a brand name attached. "She brushed her teeth with Ipana toothpaste", etc, etc. Ruth is a bored housewife, Judd is a drunk, together they kill her husband. I felt bad for Ruth's daughter, who dominates the beginning of the book but then slowly drifts out of sight, except when it's convenient for Ruth to look like a mother. The writing style was hard to follow at the beginning too (deliberately wr...more

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Jul 21, 2012 Anne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Oh, I liked this one quite a lot, despite my usual tepid reaction to biopic-type books. It's based on a cause celebre case about an affair gone bad, in which the 2 lovers, a society climber and a corset salesman, kill the woman's husband, a pompous pill of a businessman. The story is in fact the same one that inspired *2* James M Cain noirs, Indemnity and Postman. The style of this is neither hardboiled nor noirish. Apparently the actual execution of the crime was so terrible that Damon Runyon c...more

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Aug 09, 2011 Marlene rated it 3 of 5 stars

I found the book compelling mostly because it was based on a true story. The sociopathic and calculating nature of the main character Ruth was riveting. I found it incredulous how she, like a master puppeteer or black widow spider drew Judd into her web in a time when most men would not have had such easy access to a woman as sexually arousing as Ruth. At the same time, her demonization of her husband was quite stunning especially with her mother living with her in her home, almost as if she enc...more

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Oct 23, 2011 Greg Zimmerman rated it 4 of 5 stars

Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Girl convinces boy to murder her jerk husband. While not your standard love story, it is an easily recognizable literary plotline. And Ron Hansen's new novel A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion deftly chronicles a famous real-world instance of such a story of manipulation and murder.

Dateline: New York City, 1925. Voluptuous Ruth Snyder, secure in her sex appeal and her ability to manipulate men, begins a torrid affair with brassiere or corset salesman Judd G...more

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Jun 26, 2011 John rated it 5 of 5 stars

What a great read! I picked up this book and couldn't put it down. Hansen knows how to weave period detail with character development seamlessly. The story of Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray, the real life inspiration for the famous film noir Double Indemnity, is both morbidly funny and deeply unsettling. By the end, my skin was crawling and these hapless, insane, and murderous lovers seemed pitiable and human ... it's remarkable novel that can accomplish that in 250 pages. I high recommend this!

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Sep 03, 2011 Stephanie rated it 4 of 5 stars

This noir summer pleasure details the events culminating in the tabloid 1927 murder of Albert Snyder, the doomed husband of the platinum blonde stunner, Ruth. Ruth, who has "been on more laps than a dinner napkin," seduces the affable lingerie salesman and married Elks member, Judd Gray, and draws him into her sloppy murder plot. This fictionalized account of the sensationalized murder benefits from Hansen's imagined details of the doomed lovers' affair, and their increasing obssession with ridd...more

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Apr 08, 2012 Stef rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, true-crime, romance

Following up the two slightly disappointing non fiction books, this was a fantastic and easy read. I love things like Cold Case Files and City Confidential on tv and this books reads like one of the shows. Based on actual events and highly drawn from the newspapers and published stories of both Judd and Ruth, but mingled with good mystery fiction writing the story is engaging, fun, and just a little bit sexy. All in all very happy after finishing this one, would recommend as a good summer beach...more

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Jan 10, 2012 Kathy rated it 3 of 5 stars

While the story is not uplifting at all, I like how this book is written. I felt like I looked at the crime through the eyes of a detective while reading it. It was also interesting that this was based on the true story of a murder in 1927. That murder sold newspapers then just like the Casey Anthony scandal did this year and other scandels will in the future. The public can't get enough of stuff like this. It's called sensationalism and it sells papers.

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Sep 07, 2011 Joanne rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: didn-t-finish, fiction

I liked Mariette in Ecstasy and Atticus: A Novel, but this book was too sordid and seamy for me, as one might guess from the embarrassing-to-carry-around cover. Supposedly based on a real-life story, same as the movie Double Indemnity.

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About Ron Hansen

Hansen was born in Omaha, Nebraska, attended a Jesuit high school, Creighton Preparatory School and earned a Bachelor's degree in English from Creighton University in Omaha in 1970. Following military service, he earned an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1974 and held a Wallace Stegner Creative Writing Fellowship at Stanford University. He later earned an M.A. in Spirituality from Santa...more

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