This page added August 2002
I was practically homebound with panic attacks and agoraphobia for two years.  Irrational phobias like that are most frustrating type of illness because we know they're irrational fears -- but have not figured out how to control them.  I would not set idly by however and let it completely consume me -- not without fighting.  Again I say it is in this way that I believe my newfound access to the internet saved my life.  I first found The Zero in 1998.  I was one my way to finding a breakthrough, but it was reading about Andrew Vachss that gave me that injection of hope that I needed. 

My multiple turmoils stacked upon each other had nothing to do with child abuse, however after leaving the USAF and returning to Alaska, I lived with my mother for almost a year.  Probably my worst offender of all, and with time she's only progressed in the same direction.  When we are at our weakest and most vulnerable, it really doesn't matter what the current problem is, because everything that has been left unresolved will come crashing down upon us.  It was as evident as the nose on my face that I had issues that I had to deal with from long long ago.  Issues I am still dealing with today.  Issues I will continue to deal with until I can live without having to face them on a recurring basis. Again, these issues aren't the cause, however they are no less important than the cause, because they weaken the entire structure at its very foundation.

The article "You Carry the Cure In Your Own Heart (Parade Magazine, August 28, 1994)" may not have been responsible for any revelations, but it was the spark needed to ignite the fire that had been smoldering within me.  Andrew Vachss, The Zero, & his written works were the encouragement I needed at the time, and the validation for my idea to begin putting some of these issues into a tangible format.  I had no idea how to do this except to write it out.  I had also just begun to teach myself web design.  What a concept, write down the painful crap in a way it's bearable, where I could be momentarily distracted by the designing of it.  This is where XentriX Ity (eccentric city) was born.  I won't go so far as to say 'I owe it all to Andrew Vachss', because every survivor owes it all to him/herself for pressing forward.  But I will say..... discovering Andrew Vachss and The Zero was exactly what I needed at that time, and I come back to them often in reflective thoughts of gratitude.

Thank You Mr. Vachss — from the bottom of yet another heart you will never know you even helped.

Articles About Andrew Vachss  [these and many more found on The Zero]

Vachss Wants to Upset, Anger Readers of Latest Book  By Regis Behe    Originally published in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, October 12, 2001

"Vachss' hostility was sparked years ago while he was employed as an investigator for the U.S. Public Health Service. The horrors he saw—including a baby with venereal disease—caused him to embark on the crusade that has consumed him for the past 30 years.

Writing takes up only 10 percent, perhaps 15 percent, of his time; the rest is devoted to his child advocacy activities and his duties as an attorney.

The struggle has been long and hard, however, for his concerns to be taken seriously.

Along with society's inherent denial of widespread problems of abuse, some critics, he notes, have been especially caustic toward his books.

"What I got from book reviewers was 'What kind of a sick crazy mind would fantasize about such things?'" he says, referring to Strega, which concerned using computer modems for trafficking in child pornography—in 1987, long before the Internet pervaded modern life. "If I wrote the same book now, of course, nobody would say it was a fantasy."  " -   Quoted from The Zero

"Vachss says his work is regularly eyed by Hollywood for possible film projects and writing clinics examine his fiction, but he has no interest in teaching writing.

Some book critics have complained that his stories are too outlandish, and one novel, written in 1973, was rejected by publishers. But events in the story seem to presage the tragedy at Columbine High School in Colorado.

"It was rejected by every publisher in the free world on the grounds that the stuff was too unrealistic. In one scene, somebody walks into a high school with a duffel bag full of weapons and explosives, attempts to kill every human being in the high school and then kills himself," Vachss said.

Like many writers, he dedicates his books to friends, but his dedications are all to dead friends. "Dead and Gone" is a remembrance for Alicia Jiminez, a migrant worker and garment district worker.

"I never wrote a dedication to a person that is alive and never will." " -   Quoted from The Zero

Predator-Hunter/Child Abuse Activist/Writer Andrew Vachss Sets Latest Novel In Vancouver/Portland Area

"At 57, Vachss says he takes no vacations and has no interest in hobbies except one. He hunts.

Few of his readers couldn’t name the prey.

Society calls them child abusers or molesters or predators. Vachss has called them freaks and monsters since a post-college job had him tracking sexually transmitted diseases for the U.S. Public Health Service. That’s where he first heard men giggle as they described what they did to babies.

Vachss says his anger hasn’t let up from that time.

It’s been the high-voltage cattle prod behind his campaign to separate kids from their attackers, a campaign played out in courtrooms, legislators’ offices, seminar rooms and the pages of his novels and story collections.

His operations center has shifted from New York to Vancouver-Portland, but its focus hasn’t changed: to jab the public into outrage over the evil he’s seen.

Vachss’ ongoing wrath doesn’t mean area drivers should fear cutting him off in traffic. He dismisses road rage as an emotion for the impotent.

"I would have burned up long ago if I didn’t ice the rage," said Vachss, seated at the Vancouver office that handles his marketing. "I stay angry, but not flaming out of control. I have a place to put it. I have specific targets I want to see go down." "  -   Quoted from The Zero

"One could be squeamish and recoil from the frank, criminal brutality portrayed in Andrew Vachss’ novels, or take solace that his tales are morality plays examining the underbelly of life that thankfully most never have to experience. He writes what some would call murder mysteries or true crime tales, but his is a writing that is well informed beyond the average novelist’s research."

"It is the fact that Andrew Vachss has had this closeness to the criminal element that may make his writing hard for some to stomach. His is not just murder and killing and horrific gore, just for gore’s sake; it is his altruistic wish to expose the truths and horrors of child abuse and other crimes against all humankind. His website is called The Zero. This website is more than just an author’s vanity site, it is an absolute behemoth of resources and links to numerous governmental and nongovernmental agencies and organizations involved in helping victims of violent crimes and abuse in all its many forms. No where else on the Web have I seen such a plethora of these kinds of resources catalogued." -   Quoted from The Zero

The Haunted World of Andrew Vachss
Will the child-abuse crusader and bestselling crime novelist vanquish his demons in Oregon?
By Zach Dundas     Originally published in Willamette Week, November 17, 1999.

" "Obsessed? That’s an understatement," says David Gendelman, a rat-a-tat-talking New York lawyer who’s been Vachss’ ally for years. "I’ve said to this guy many times, hey, take a few days off and relax. Come out to the beach for a barbecue. He won’t do it."

It may seem odd, then, that less than a year ago, Vachss traded his native megalopolis for new digs near Portland, bringing his full-throttle work ethic and attack-dog yen for battle to the land of balanced living and fuzzy New Age harmony. In copacetic Oregon, fiction is more apt to feature Zen-addled fly fishermen than the self-avowed sociopaths who people Vachss’ novels. Which, of course, poses a question: If Andrew Vachss is the hardest of the hardboiled, what the hell is he doing here?" -   Quoted from The Zero

"He's after the predators—those who commit crimes of abuse and sexual offense against children—and fiction has become a potent armament in his war against "the Beast." Focusing on Vachss solely as a writer is impossible. He is a combatant in a continuing conflict. "I am a solider in (as far as I'm concerned) the only "Holy War" worthy of the name," he says. "Of necessity, this is guerrilla warfare. Therefore, you use what weapons are available. I 'chose' fiction because I don't own a TV network or a radio station or a newspaper. I wanted to reach a bigger jury than I could ever hope to find in a courthouse. My first book was non-fiction. It got wonderful reviews...and almost no readers outside the 'profession.' I chose 'fiction' because it is the only Trojan Horse available to someone of my resources."" -   Quoted from The Zero

Pedophiles: The Harsh Reality
By Bob Riedel     Editorial originally published in the Genesee Country Express, April 10, 1998.

"One of the prerequisites to writing a coherent editorial is having a cool head—something I ain't really got right now, at least where this subject's concerned. A healthy empathetic mind tends to reel when trying to confront actions so sinister they have the capacity of destroying innocent souls.

So I defer to a source I've consulted in the past about similar matters. It's not that Andrew Vachss isn't angry; it's more, I'd judge, that he's trained himself to turn that anger cold and redirect it toward the victimizers of children. Vachss, a New York attorney, has been working tirelessly for years as a legal advocate for abused children, and a crusader against the sexual abuse of children worldwide." -   Quoted from The Zero

The Prosecutor: He Walks It Like He Talks It
By Alex Kershaw     Originally published in the Weekend Guardian, May 2-3, 1992

"To the trained investigator, there are many clues to Andrew Vachss' character in his shabby office 18 floors above Broadway. Three anatomical dolls lie in a heap in a corner below framed posters of his seven bestselling novels. Pictures of vicious dogs cover the walls. A firing range "human" target is stuck to one, its temple and heart perfectly holed.

For 27 years, Andrew Vachss has been fighting what he considers the most pernicious evil: the sexual abuse of children for pleasure and profit. Kiddie pornographers, paedophiles, incestuous fathers and other child abusers are all the same in his black and white world. They're maggots, the enemy. He is the only private practice lawyer in America specialising exclusively in protecting [children and youth]." -   Quoted from The Zero

Prince of Darkness 
by Carl Hindmarch     Originally published in Elle, June 1989.

"In Blue Belle, Vachss' third novel, Burke is contracted by a syndicate of New York pimps to track down a mysterious van which is snatching child prostitutes from the streets and using them in snuff videos. It's a violent story written in stylish bullet-hard prose which sends shivers down your spine and gives you bad dreams at night, but it's part of the same campaign. "I'm writing to anger people, to make them look for answers to questions that perhaps had not occurred to them. If I were to take some of the actual cases I have handled and fictionalise them, they would make you vomit ... I cannot imagine there is anything people will not do." While Vachss meets the same people in court that Burke runs into on the streets, the lawyer is keen to quash any suggestion that his Mr. Hyde is a Rambo-type figure dealing a rougher poetic justice than is available through the courts.

"Burke is a criminal whose main concern is staying alive—I am far more effective than him. All he has ever done is confront, and occasionally kill bad individuals. I do not for one minute fantasise that by killing an individual you wipe out kiddie pornography."

Vachss may not be a head-hunting prosecutor, but when it comes to defending the victims of sexual abuse he certainly counts scalps.

Vachss' single-minded clarity of purpose fuels both his legal work and his fiction. The only difficulty for the writer is toning down the reality to make it acceptable to readers of fiction. The passionate lawyer calmly explains: "If I were to take some of the actual cases I have handled and fictionalise them, they would make you vomit."

While his writing has been hailed as crime fiction to rank alongside that of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, the American legal system still cannot make up its mind about Andrew Vachss. "When I want to incarcerate a child abuser I'm a right-winger, but when I recommend a twelve-year-old be sent for treatment rather than to prison because he is the victim of abuse I am a soft left-winger." He doesn't really care for the liberal academic debate and is happy to leave it to the day-time chat shows." -   Quoted from The Zero

Andrew Vachss: Flood's Angry Author 
By Laurence Shames     Published in Playboy, February 1986

"Unlike most detective writers, Vachss, 43, has firsthand knowledge going back 20 years, when, as a Government health investigator, he was assigned to track the spread of venereal disease, "doing fun things like taking blood samples at three A.M. in moving cars." Vachss found that the deeper he dug into the underworld of clap, the more he found the infection passed along to kids of both genders who were nowhere near the age of puberty, let alone consent." -   Quoted from The Zero

"In the novel and an accompanying comic book by D.C. Comics, which is scripted by Neal Barrett Jr. and illustrated by Denys Cowan, Batman finds out his mother was an activist against child abuse. She was on the verge of discovering a child sex industry in the fictional land of Udon Khai and was killed when somebody tried to stop her. Now Batman is on the scene to continue her work.

"There's people that would read a Batman book that wouldn't read one of my usual books," Vachss said. "So it's simply in a different way to get the same message out."

In the back of the book there's an essay about how Udon Khai is actually Thailand. Vachss said he got all kinds of threats including complaints from the Thai government and the U.S. State Department for writing this book and for saying the government was promoting the sex industry.

"There's no question that there's organized multi-level corruption where everybody shares in a piece of the kiddy sex tourism industry," Vachss said.

Therefore, Vachss is promoting a boycott of Thai products. "By asking everybody not to buy stuff that's made in Thailand, we're hoping to strangle them economically, as what happened in South Africa," he said." -   Quoted from The Zero

An Update on Don't! Buy! Thai!   December 20, 2000  

"We are not taking credit for it, but the world did find out, partially because of the tireless work of various individuals and agencies, partly because of investigative journalism, partly because of first-person accounts, and partly through "fiction advocacy," such as that practiced by the incomparable Adam Hall and the fearless Alan Grant. Some countries even passed "extra-territorial" laws so that child sex tourists could be prosecuted in their home countries for crimes committed in foreign jurisdictions, and specific prosecutions of those using Thailand for such purposes did occur. Since the first wave of such prosecutions, Thailand apparently changed both its own laws and its law enforcement, and word has slowly reached the professional pedophile "community." " -   Quoted from The Zero