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Squelched: The Suppression of Murder in the Synagogue
A compelling story of corporate deceit and criminality, Squelched: The Suppression of Murder in the Synagogue carefully details how a top Republican fund-raiser and wealthy confidant of Richard Nixon effectively pressured Prentice-Hall, Inc., into withdrawing its support for T.V. LoCicero’s Murder in the Synagogue, a true crime account of the assassination of Rabbi Morris Adler.
As Squelched opens, a remarkable young woman comes forward to tell the author that his book had been undermined by a powerful man she had grown up calling “uncle.” Later LoCicero learns that four years after it sabotaged Murder in the Synagogue, the publisher did the same thing to another of its books, Du Pont: Behind the Nylon Curtain. The story of what Prentice-Hall did to the Du Pont book was first told on January 21, 1975, in the New York Times. The story of what happened to Murder in the Synagogue has never been told…until now.
As Squelched opens, a remarkable young woman comes forward to tell the author that his book had been undermined by a powerful man she had grown up calling “uncle.” Later LoCicero learns that four years after it sabotaged Murder in the Synagogue, the publisher did the same thing to another of its books, Du Pont: Behind the Nylon Curtain. The story of what Prentice-Hall did to the Du Pont book was first told on January 21, 1975, in the New York Times. The story of what happened to Murder in the Synagogue has never been told…until now.
- GenresTrue Crime
230 pages, Paperback
First published July 2, 2012
3 people are currently reading
594 people want to read
About the author
T.V. LoCicero
19 books202 followersT.V. LoCicero has been writing both fiction and non-fiction across five decades. Several of his books have been named Awesome Indies.
He's the author of the true crime books Murder in the Synagogue (Prentice-Hall), on the assassination of Rabbi Morris Adler, and Squelched: The Suppression of Murder in the Synagogue. His novels include the coming-of-age story Sicilian Quilt, the romance When A Pretty Woman Smiles, and the crime thrillers Babytrick, The Car Bomb and Admission of Guilt (The detroit im dyin Trilogy), and The Obsession and The Disappearance (the first two books in The Truth Beauty Trilogy). His collection of short fiction and non-fiction, Coming Up Short , includes stories and essays he has published in various periodicals, including Commentary, Ms. and The University Review, and in the hard-cover collections Best Magazine Articles, The Norton Reader and The Third Coast.
About what he calls his “checkered past,” LoCicero says:
“At one time or another I've found work as an industrial spy; a producer of concert videos for Rolling Stone's greatest singer of all time; one of the few male contributors to Gloria Steinem's Ms. Magazine; a writer of an appellate brief for those convicted in one of Detroit's most sensational drug trials; the author of a true crime book that garnered a bigger advance than a top ten best-selling American novel; a project coordinator/fundraiser for a humanities council; a small business owner; the writer/producer/director of numerous long-form documentaries; a golf course clerk; a college instructor who taught courses in advanced composition, music and poetry appreciation, introduction to philosophy, remedial English, and American Literature--all in the same term; a ghostwriter; a maker of corporate/industrial videos; a member of a highway surveying crew; a speechwriter for auto executives; a TV producer of live event specials; an editorial writer; the creator of 15-second corporate promos for the PBS series Nature; and a novelist.
“There is a sense in which that last occupation was the reason for all the others. Almost anyone who's ever tried to make ends meet as a novelist knows what I'm talking about.”
He's the author of the true crime books Murder in the Synagogue (Prentice-Hall), on the assassination of Rabbi Morris Adler, and Squelched: The Suppression of Murder in the Synagogue. His novels include the coming-of-age story Sicilian Quilt, the romance When A Pretty Woman Smiles, and the crime thrillers Babytrick, The Car Bomb and Admission of Guilt (The detroit im dyin Trilogy), and The Obsession and The Disappearance (the first two books in The Truth Beauty Trilogy). His collection of short fiction and non-fiction, Coming Up Short , includes stories and essays he has published in various periodicals, including Commentary, Ms. and The University Review, and in the hard-cover collections Best Magazine Articles, The Norton Reader and The Third Coast.
About what he calls his “checkered past,” LoCicero says:
“At one time or another I've found work as an industrial spy; a producer of concert videos for Rolling Stone's greatest singer of all time; one of the few male contributors to Gloria Steinem's Ms. Magazine; a writer of an appellate brief for those convicted in one of Detroit's most sensational drug trials; the author of a true crime book that garnered a bigger advance than a top ten best-selling American novel; a project coordinator/fundraiser for a humanities council; a small business owner; the writer/producer/director of numerous long-form documentaries; a golf course clerk; a college instructor who taught courses in advanced composition, music and poetry appreciation, introduction to philosophy, remedial English, and American Literature--all in the same term; a ghostwriter; a maker of corporate/industrial videos; a member of a highway surveying crew; a speechwriter for auto executives; a TV producer of live event specials; an editorial writer; the creator of 15-second corporate promos for the PBS series Nature; and a novelist.
“There is a sense in which that last occupation was the reason for all the others. Almost anyone who's ever tried to make ends meet as a novelist knows what I'm talking about.”
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 22, 2021
Reading T.V. LoCicero’s Squelched during the week that the Federal Communications Commission, under the leadership of Ajit Pai (December of 2017), ended Net Neutrality has been an instructive experience. As these stories demonstrate, wealth and the power it confers—in the case of Squelched a single individual, in the case of Net Neutrality, the telecommunications lobby—too often trump the rights of the citizen's access to information he or she might consider necessary.
Murder in the Synagogue, which I have reviewed elsewhere on this website, tells the story of the 1966 murder of Rabbi Morris Adler by Richard Wishnetsky, one of the rabbi’s congregants at the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue in Detroit. Mr. Wishnetsky’s story is amply and ably told in Murder in the Synagogue. Suffice to say that he was a young man whose star was very much in ascendance when a clinical mental illness brought him crashing to earth, and compelled him to commit this Dostoevskian murder.
As a young writer in Detroit, Mr. LoCicero fell into this story. On the strength of an article he published in the journal Commentary, he secured a contract to write a book on the murder, and particularly on Richard Wishnetsky’s motive for murdering Rabbi Adler. Given the enormous changes in American society underway in the 1960s, this book would endeavor to explain Mr. Wishnetsky in the context of his political, intellectual, and social milieu. Many of the principals, including Rabbi Adler’s wife, Goldie Adler, were cooperative and encouraging, so Mr. LoCicero proceeded with his research, confident that he would not besmirch Detroit’s Jewish community—which he painstakingly sought to avoid doing.
Before Prentice-Hall, the publisher of Murder in the Synagogue, could even ship the book, however, there were problems in its editorial process. The book’s editors balked at its length, at the minutia of the biographical portrait of Richard Wishnetsky (one of the great strengths of the book), and other issues that commonly attend the editorial process leading up to the production of a book. When I received my copy of the book, I was surprised indeed to see the Prentice-Hall imprint on its spine; I’ve always associated Prentice-Hall with textbooks, so the company struck me, even across the time and distance since its publication, as an odd choice for a book of this sort. Nonetheless, it was a publisher with national and international reach which paid Mr. LoCicero a handsome advance, so its commitment to Murder in the Synagogue appeared genuine. Therefore, the editorial issues seemed as bumps in the road.
However, during the production process, Mr. LoCicero received information that Max Martin Fisher, a wealthy, powerful Detroiter, and a member of Shaarey Zedek, had boasted at a social gathering of successfully suppressing Murder in the Synagogue. He had, he told those in attendance--one of whom would later contact Mr. LoCicero with this story--successfully "squelched" the story of Richard Wishnetsky's murder of Rabbi Adler.
Squelched follows this story through the eyes of the author as he seeks facts to confirm what remains, maddeningly, a rumor. Mr. LoCicero uses the device of the third person—he identifies himself as “L” throughout the narrative. At first, I found this a tad precious, but as the narrative unfolded, I became more sympathetic to the strategy; in fact, I arrived at the conclusion that avoiding the first person was really the only way to write a book such as this. The use of the upright pronoun would have turned this book, as one character in it warns, into a "woe-is-me wheeze." As L pursues the story, he meets numerous dead ends. Because he is evidently not conspiratorially-minded, one of the questions that L considers is whether or not the fate of his book is due to the machinations of one wealthy and powerful man, of the bureaucratic lassitude and incompetence of the representatives of one of the nation’s largest publishers. Given the consequences—a book suppressed—I suppose in the final analysis it doesn’t matter.
Because much of the evidence is circumstantial, it remains difficult to prove either case. To his credit, Mr. LoCicero never categorically asserts that his book was suppressed. He builds a strong case in Squelched, but recognizes it is insufficient to prove the suppression of Murder in the Synagogue beyond a reasonable doubt. Under these circumstances, I cannot imagine this was an easy book to write. Not many people set out to read a book without a clear resolution; one of the reasons one reads is to see real world problems solved—even if those problems are solved fictionally. I imagine even fewer writers set out to compose and publish a book without a clear resolution, as that could likely become be a book without readers.
Mr. LoCicero remedies this lapse with a stately epilogue. In this finale, the reader is privy to an older man speaking to his younger self, chiding him for the folly of his pride in pursuing his investigation into the suppression of Murder in the Synagogue, but also congratulating him for his willingness to fight a good fight (and there are few better fights than opposing censorship), and for preventing his book from simply falling prey to the whims of the wealthy and powerful.
In the case of Murder in the Synagogue man named Max Martin Fisher, sought the silencing of a single book. Dangerous though such conduct is in an open, civil society with constitutional guarantees of free speech, it pales in comparison to Ajit Pai’s attempt to restrict the flow on information in the digital commons that makes possible the delivery of information. Either way, the public is impoverished by these censors.
Murder in the Synagogue, which I have reviewed elsewhere on this website, tells the story of the 1966 murder of Rabbi Morris Adler by Richard Wishnetsky, one of the rabbi’s congregants at the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue in Detroit. Mr. Wishnetsky’s story is amply and ably told in Murder in the Synagogue. Suffice to say that he was a young man whose star was very much in ascendance when a clinical mental illness brought him crashing to earth, and compelled him to commit this Dostoevskian murder.
As a young writer in Detroit, Mr. LoCicero fell into this story. On the strength of an article he published in the journal Commentary, he secured a contract to write a book on the murder, and particularly on Richard Wishnetsky’s motive for murdering Rabbi Adler. Given the enormous changes in American society underway in the 1960s, this book would endeavor to explain Mr. Wishnetsky in the context of his political, intellectual, and social milieu. Many of the principals, including Rabbi Adler’s wife, Goldie Adler, were cooperative and encouraging, so Mr. LoCicero proceeded with his research, confident that he would not besmirch Detroit’s Jewish community—which he painstakingly sought to avoid doing.
Before Prentice-Hall, the publisher of Murder in the Synagogue, could even ship the book, however, there were problems in its editorial process. The book’s editors balked at its length, at the minutia of the biographical portrait of Richard Wishnetsky (one of the great strengths of the book), and other issues that commonly attend the editorial process leading up to the production of a book. When I received my copy of the book, I was surprised indeed to see the Prentice-Hall imprint on its spine; I’ve always associated Prentice-Hall with textbooks, so the company struck me, even across the time and distance since its publication, as an odd choice for a book of this sort. Nonetheless, it was a publisher with national and international reach which paid Mr. LoCicero a handsome advance, so its commitment to Murder in the Synagogue appeared genuine. Therefore, the editorial issues seemed as bumps in the road.
However, during the production process, Mr. LoCicero received information that Max Martin Fisher, a wealthy, powerful Detroiter, and a member of Shaarey Zedek, had boasted at a social gathering of successfully suppressing Murder in the Synagogue. He had, he told those in attendance--one of whom would later contact Mr. LoCicero with this story--successfully "squelched" the story of Richard Wishnetsky's murder of Rabbi Adler.
Squelched follows this story through the eyes of the author as he seeks facts to confirm what remains, maddeningly, a rumor. Mr. LoCicero uses the device of the third person—he identifies himself as “L” throughout the narrative. At first, I found this a tad precious, but as the narrative unfolded, I became more sympathetic to the strategy; in fact, I arrived at the conclusion that avoiding the first person was really the only way to write a book such as this. The use of the upright pronoun would have turned this book, as one character in it warns, into a "woe-is-me wheeze." As L pursues the story, he meets numerous dead ends. Because he is evidently not conspiratorially-minded, one of the questions that L considers is whether or not the fate of his book is due to the machinations of one wealthy and powerful man, of the bureaucratic lassitude and incompetence of the representatives of one of the nation’s largest publishers. Given the consequences—a book suppressed—I suppose in the final analysis it doesn’t matter.
Because much of the evidence is circumstantial, it remains difficult to prove either case. To his credit, Mr. LoCicero never categorically asserts that his book was suppressed. He builds a strong case in Squelched, but recognizes it is insufficient to prove the suppression of Murder in the Synagogue beyond a reasonable doubt. Under these circumstances, I cannot imagine this was an easy book to write. Not many people set out to read a book without a clear resolution; one of the reasons one reads is to see real world problems solved—even if those problems are solved fictionally. I imagine even fewer writers set out to compose and publish a book without a clear resolution, as that could likely become be a book without readers.
Mr. LoCicero remedies this lapse with a stately epilogue. In this finale, the reader is privy to an older man speaking to his younger self, chiding him for the folly of his pride in pursuing his investigation into the suppression of Murder in the Synagogue, but also congratulating him for his willingness to fight a good fight (and there are few better fights than opposing censorship), and for preventing his book from simply falling prey to the whims of the wealthy and powerful.
In the case of Murder in the Synagogue man named Max Martin Fisher, sought the silencing of a single book. Dangerous though such conduct is in an open, civil society with constitutional guarantees of free speech, it pales in comparison to Ajit Pai’s attempt to restrict the flow on information in the digital commons that makes possible the delivery of information. Either way, the public is impoverished by these censors.
March 26, 2016
An intriguing, but at times baffling book that raises as many questiuons as it answers. Why did all this go down the way it did? Why take a bite out of someone else's writing career because the book he just wrote MIGHT embarrass someone? Why do so many people in the industry play along with shenangians like these? This is a chilling expose of miscondict in an industry I'm now glad I never made a career out of. Yeesh, you can keep it. Recommended for those who want to see how an everyday, ordinary, real-life conspiracy happens. No umbrellas that shoot poison darts; no secret high-level government deals; just a phone call that crushes the life out of a book someone didn't want to read.
September 7, 2014
A fascinating story about a dark side of the publishing industry.....
April 23, 2013
"Squelched: The Suppression of Murder in the Synagogue" by T.V LoCicero has been on and off my reading list for days before I dared to finally approach it. It is the history of the reception or rather the non-reception and suppression of the book "Murder at the Synagogue" by the same author.
Having read "Murder at the Synagogue" I was assured of the author's ability to remain objective in his writing but I did fear all the same that some bitterness or paranoia would come to light in the tale. I must say as hard as I looked for it, I did not find it.
The book is a fair account of both stories and details almost excessively the story of "Murder at the Synagogue", from writing, to editing and finding a publisher to said somewhat dodgy publication.
In minute precision LoCicero recounts all 'mistakes' and 'errors, 'omissions' and 'oversights' that happened to his book from the first stage of meeting publishers and agents.
I found it hard to swallow that the story of a murder/ suicide in a Synagogue could find someone willing to first publish but then suppress the book. However, as LoCicero progresses with the tale of publication it seems impossible that one book should have met so much accidents and unfortunate coincidences. I really hate conspiracy theories but at about 30% of the book I could not find a reason to rationalise all the obstacles the book had met so early on.
Like LoCicero I have wondered about the why and it seems plausible for some wealthy businessman to decide that some things are better left without being discussed and that none of this was done in bad spirit or personally to hurt the author, although it must be said that if you are said author missing out on reputation, fame and royalties you might have a different perspective, particularly when books by Truman Capote and similar work had been published in the same era, without much regard for the families of the victims.
LoCicero has made a tremendous effort to keep objective, quote reliable witnesses and not to interpret data or voice polemic or insinuating opinions. Admittedly as a reader I have to take his word for some of the conversations he recalls, yet were it pure fiction he could and probably would have made his case water tight.
Towards the end the author describes conversations with the publishers and other individuals involved and gives them the opportunity to explain and justify their actions and much of the doubt these people sowed in my mind holds true. It seems far fetched to believe a conspiracy against one relatively unknown author, yet, stranger things have happened, especially if the intention behind the action was kindly meant.
Whether or not you believe LoCicero, the book is well written with an almost self-defeating objectivity. I for one am inclined to believe LoCicero.
It is also informative for an aspiring author like myself to get a glimpse into the world of traditional publishing at the time.
If I had to pinpoint one criticism to the story it would be the amount of detail. Although necessary to document without omission the course of events, I found myself loose interest towards the end of the book because of it and only got drawn back into the story with a vengeance in the epilogue.
Having read "Murder at the Synagogue" I was assured of the author's ability to remain objective in his writing but I did fear all the same that some bitterness or paranoia would come to light in the tale. I must say as hard as I looked for it, I did not find it.
The book is a fair account of both stories and details almost excessively the story of "Murder at the Synagogue", from writing, to editing and finding a publisher to said somewhat dodgy publication.
In minute precision LoCicero recounts all 'mistakes' and 'errors, 'omissions' and 'oversights' that happened to his book from the first stage of meeting publishers and agents.
I found it hard to swallow that the story of a murder/ suicide in a Synagogue could find someone willing to first publish but then suppress the book. However, as LoCicero progresses with the tale of publication it seems impossible that one book should have met so much accidents and unfortunate coincidences. I really hate conspiracy theories but at about 30% of the book I could not find a reason to rationalise all the obstacles the book had met so early on.
Like LoCicero I have wondered about the why and it seems plausible for some wealthy businessman to decide that some things are better left without being discussed and that none of this was done in bad spirit or personally to hurt the author, although it must be said that if you are said author missing out on reputation, fame and royalties you might have a different perspective, particularly when books by Truman Capote and similar work had been published in the same era, without much regard for the families of the victims.
LoCicero has made a tremendous effort to keep objective, quote reliable witnesses and not to interpret data or voice polemic or insinuating opinions. Admittedly as a reader I have to take his word for some of the conversations he recalls, yet were it pure fiction he could and probably would have made his case water tight.
Towards the end the author describes conversations with the publishers and other individuals involved and gives them the opportunity to explain and justify their actions and much of the doubt these people sowed in my mind holds true. It seems far fetched to believe a conspiracy against one relatively unknown author, yet, stranger things have happened, especially if the intention behind the action was kindly meant.
Whether or not you believe LoCicero, the book is well written with an almost self-defeating objectivity. I for one am inclined to believe LoCicero.
It is also informative for an aspiring author like myself to get a glimpse into the world of traditional publishing at the time.
If I had to pinpoint one criticism to the story it would be the amount of detail. Although necessary to document without omission the course of events, I found myself loose interest towards the end of the book because of it and only got drawn back into the story with a vengeance in the epilogue.
May 19, 2013
Pretty much a yawn. After reading the book that this book is about and enjoying it so much I was looking forward to something truly sinister in the annals of publishing, but although the author investigated why his book didn't sell well and confirmed that there was some background pressure to, as he puts it, "squelch" it, he comes up with nothing other than speculation as to motives (though of course, he's quite sure that his speculations are accurate), and certainly nothing that sounds remotely criminal. Basically it was a lot of whining about why his first book didn't sell, and why 30 years later he decided to self-publish a new edition of it along with this paired screed.
January 22, 2021
I’m grateful to Tom for supplying me with this account of the suppression of his first excellent book, “Murder in the Synagogue.” The action follows the inexplicable failure of his first book to find traction or attention, even in the Detroit-area in which its grim subject is set. Turns out that a major macher in the Jewish community, one Max Fisher, helped pressure the publisher to keep copies and publicity to a minimal. Why? Seems like the community was embarrassed by the traumatic episode, and didn’t want subsequent attention. A conspiracy? No, just well-placed influencers acting with understandable—but misplaced—regard for the murderer’s family. The world lost attention to an instructive book about mental health and the American Jewish community. In excruciating detail we learn how the “sausage” gets made (or doesn’t) in book publishing in the late 60s. An expose of the DuPont family also suffers a similar fate a few years later. Moral of the story: don’t publish with Prentice-Hall.
September 10, 2015
Not a very interesting story. But it did make me want to read Murder in the Synagogue. I thought the author had a nice writing style but the story itself did not keep my attention.
June 14, 2013
Lousy with a capital L.
August 22, 2015
Easy to read. The writing was good but the story isn't all that interesting. I was compelled to finish it though. Now I need to read Murder in the Synagogue.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews