Basement: True Story of Violence in an American Family

by Kate Millett

Probes the brutal torture and death of sixteen-year-old Sylvia Likens who was victimized and killed in the basement of Gertrude Baniszewski, with whom she was boarding--her tormentors being Gertrude and a group of teenagers

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Feminism, Crime

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Katherine Murray "Kate" Millett was an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist. She attended Oxford University and was the first American woman to be awarded a postgraduate degree with first-class honors by St. Hilda's. She has been described as "a seminal influence on second-wave feminism", and is best known for her 1970 book Sexual Politics," which was her doctoral dissertation at Columbia University. Journalist Liza Featherstone attributes previously unimaginable "legal abortion, greater professional equality between the sexes and a sexual freedom" being made possible partially due to Millett's efforts.

The feminist, human rights, peace, civil rights, and anti-psychiatry movements have been some of Millett's key causes. Her books were motivated by her activism, such as woman's rights and mental health reform, and several were autobiographical memoirs that explored her sexuality, mental health, and relationships. Mother Millett and The Loony Bin Trip, for instance, dealt with family issues and the times when she was involuntarily committed. Besides appearing in a number of documentaries, she produced Three Lives and wrote Not a Love Story: A Film about Pornography. In the 1960s and 1970s, Millett taught at Waseda University, Bryn Mawr College, Barnard College, and University of California, Berkeley.

Millett was raised in Minnesota and has spent most of her adult life in Manhattan and the Woman's Art Colony, which became the Millett Center for the Arts in 2012, that she established in Poughkeepsie, New York. Self-identified as bisexual, Millett was married to sculptor Fumio Yoshimura from 1965 to 1985 and had relationships with women, one of whom was the inspiration for her book Sita. She has continued to work as an activist, writer, and artist. Some of her later written works are The Politics of Cruelty (1994), about state-sanctioned torture in many countries, and a book about the relationship with her mother in Mother Millett (2001). Between 2011 and 2013 she has won the Lambda Pioneer Award for Literature, received Yoko Ono's Courage Award for the Arts, and was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Reviews

[Edwina Book Anaconda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oct. 26, 1965 a 16 year old girl was found tortured to death in a basement of a home in Indianapolis, Indiana ... 10 years later, a woman obsessed with the case decided to write a book,
a book based mostly on speculation.

For the author to take such horrific, heartbreaking subject matter and try to twist it into being some kind of pornographic thrill ride disgusted and sickened me unlike anything I've ever read.
How dare she assume to know what Sylvia Likens or Gertrude Baniszewski or ANY of them were thinking.
Battered and bloody, scalded by hot baths and burned with cigarettes, branded and carved on, covered in her own filth and lying on a pile of dirty rags and the author thinks Sylvia is lying there thinking about how she used to touch "it" but she won't anymore because it's dirty.

Even in death, poor little Sylvia is still being tortured, this time by some idiot author, whom, in my opinion, would greatly benefit by sharing her sadomasochistic fantasies with a shrink.

I would not recommend this book to anyone, and if it didn't belong to the Library, I would toss it right into my fireplace.

[Sabrina Rutter · Rating 1 out of 5]

This author seems a bit off her rocker! I have never read a true crime book before where the author claims to be obsessed with the victim of a brutal crime. I just can't read this book one page further! The author has made herself a part of the story and that's just not sitting well with me. I'm so glad I borrowed this from the library instead of buying it!
There are only two books I know of that are about this crime and both in my opinion are horribly written. The other THE INDIANA TORTURE SLAYING is much more readable than this one, but the style it was written in bored me to tears.
Honestly I have read much better written articles about this crime on the internet.

[Tom Mueller · Rating 4 out of 5]

A graphic description of Sylvia Likens 1965 torture/murder by Gertrude Baniszewski in Indiana. Apathy of witnesses who heard ongoing torture, at least 15 involved in torture. Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door is based on this murder. See also Victorian Murderesses by Mary Hartman].
After I first read Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door, I followed up by reading a lot of newspaper reports and some non-fiction books. I have a penchant for reading true crime; constantly amazed, horrified and tormented by the atrocities man is capable of inflicting on another human (or any animal as far as that goes). I sometimes wonder why our higher power has allowed us to continue as a species, assuming there is a HP.
Nature cannot be cruel, or evil; these distinguishing traits are limited to humans. That creates a conundrum of course; one must ponder if we are in fact a part of nature, or a pure abomination.

[judy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to read this book in speedy spurts; while I wanted to get through it as quickly as possible, I could only take so much at a time. The content was horrifying and the writing horrible. By the end, I was actively angry with the author for her ego, presumptuousness and plain bad writing. The entire book is like a case study based on speculation.

[Phil Overeem · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy true crime, as well as psychological excavations of the criminal mind, and I'd been meaning to read about this case since I heard John Waters allude to it long ago. It is a book to be read in small doses, but it is very, very good--and Millett's courage in plunging into the possibilities and implications is...beyond measure.

[Annmarie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave this the maximum number of stars because it Is an amazing book, but there is nothing entertaining about it - and there isn't meant to be. It's heartbreaking, angering, and disturbing, and you won't forget it.

[Bobbie B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kate Millett's The Basement was published in 1979 after a decades long obsession with the Sylvia Likens torture/murder case. It's ahead of its time for it's feminist take on the motivations of those involved and the way the case was handled in court. While it's now accepted in popular culture that women fixate on true crime stories, that was not recognized when this book was published, so it's radical in that sense, too.

If you've ever been truly obsessed with a crime, you may recognize Millett's need to know even the most mundane details. Reading it, I had the sense that she'd spent years crawling around that basement, trying to understand what happened, pulling dirt and blood from every nook and cranny.

Ultimately, there are no answers as to why crazy shit like this happens. We get close to the mystery and offer explanations and theories, but the center never holds. This is also why I think Millett's attempts in the final section to write the story as fiction, in alternating viewpoints, ultimately fails. No matter how many details you collect, you can never truly know what the victim and perpetrator feel. That's what fuels our obsession with true crime, I think.

This was a hard read, but a thought-provoking one, too.

[Me · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I first read this in 1985 I thought it was fantastic. Later after reading more about the case I realized that Kate Millet had been creative with her portrayal of some of the "characters" and the "facts" surrounding the case.

[Kym]

Haunting reminations on how on Oct. 26, 1965 a 16 year old girl was found tortured to death in a basement of a home in Indianapolis, Indiana.

[Carmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can only read a little bit of this book at a time, as it is so disturbing. After seeing "An American Crime" I became very interested in what really happened in this case.

[no elle · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is in such horrifically bad taste it circles back to being incredible. it totally presages our contemporary true crime culture & economy in the way millett launders her obscene prurient interest thru a feminist lens. top tier demented shit!! #hermind slipping between low class gertrude & sylvia drag but inhabiting each like they're characters in her little thought experiment and not real people. this mf really wrote about a murdered teenager's fat ass straining thru her jeans!!! "just a filthy little slut covered with pee." this sordid obsession with sylvia's "bottom mouth" being kicked and penetrated. kate is def in hell for this 1

[Kristyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book about the Sylvia Likens case. This book is interesting in that it's part fact, part fiction. The factual part comes mostly from court transcripts as well as some articles that were written about the case. The fiction part comes from the author writing what she thought some of the key players, mostly Sylvia, Gertrude, and Paula were thinking during the entire time from the beginning up to Sylvia's death. If you are interested in the case, this book is worth reading. I will warn you, it is very disturbing as well as heartbreaking.

[Kerstin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I shall admit I did not finish the book. I read to about 60 pages because of the gruesome details.
Second, I do not like it when a writer use the Case of a murder/abuse to make a feminist statement.
I am a hundred percent for equality, but a child who is tortured to Death is horrible, regardless of gender.

[Peacegal · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think it's good that a book was written about this senseless crime, but I did not like the way it was written--with the author assuming the voices of the murderer and her victim for over half the text--at all.

[Melissa Wells · Rating 3 out of 5]

For starters, the author is downright weird. She rambles on through most of the book as though she's high and completely obsessed with Sylvia Likens. Her view on why Gertrude did what she did to Sylvia borders on sexual predator and is so disturbing. The author is way too disturbed for my taste.

[Alba M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been researching child abuse for a long time. Not much of adult depravity towards youth, and youth’s loathing for each other, can shock me now. This book and this case made me physically ill. I was severely triggered to the point that I wouldn’t feel like I could recommend this reading to anyone. What this girl experienced it’s on par with the worst of Nazi atrocities, and I’ve forced myself to finish this book in one day just so that I won’t have to ever open it again. But I won’t stop thinking about it. Because it happened, and probably something similar is happening now.

[Tracy]

I honestly have no idea what to do with this text. I went from thinking it was five stars to zero, sometimes on the same page. I think reckoning with it is essential for true crime scholarship, but I really don't feel up to the task.

[mike · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you prefer your true crime written by overly dramatic mental cases that needlesslessly show off their vocabulary and find a way to tie everything to some fantastical pseudoscientific gender power struggle, then do I have the book for you...

Zero stars.

[Digby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horrific

[RJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did not finish. Would be a five, but when Millett transitions fully to fictionalized inner monologues of the people involved, I didn't feel like I could slog through the rest. First two parts? Good!

[Barbara Wellnitz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Weird, strange. Psychoanalysis of Sylvia and Gertrude? The true story itself is gruesome.

[Mandilyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cannot in all honesty say that I "enjoyed" this book. It is mesmerizing, but there were many times where I powered through passages, fighting the urge to be violently ill. Polarizing is a very good description for this book. It's an enthralling read for those interested in the true crime genre, or the Likens case in general. The major difference between this account of the case and say, "House of Evil" by John Dean is that "The Basement" fully immerses you into the horror of Sylvia Likens' final days by having many passages from her perspective, as well as the perspective of a few of her murderers, and her helpless sister, Jenny. "House of Evil" tells the same story, but as a dry, recitation of the facts.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had wanted to read this for a while after learning that it was one of John Waters' favorite books, and then by curious coincidence, Netflix, using their inexplicable algorithm, thought I would like to watch An American Crime, based on the same story - a shame John Waters didn't do an over-the-top interpretation. Kate Millet's take on the crime is interspersed with testimony taken from the trial, along with her own musings, often through the point of view of the perpetrator and the victim, which lent a highly disturbing, often hard to stomach account of the horrific torture and murder of Sylvia Likens.

[Del Chadburn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book 10 years ago and I still remember it to this day. A compelling read. Not for the faint hearted

[Katine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Difficult in a few different ways. Really alienating at times. Reading about the context of the novel in Kate Millett's life made reading it much more interesting.

[mainland · Rating 1 out of 5]

Had to return this before I finished but idk if I'll go back to it - I came here looking for gratuitous & grisly but this is a whole other level of self-indulgence.

[Walter Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Be warned before reading this ~ it's brutal, and may haunt you. There's a movie version - I don't recommend it.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A hard read. Not for the faint of heart.