Meyer Levin 
Compulsion 
A Novel

Judd Steiner and Artie Straus have it all: wealth, intelligence, and the world at their feet as part of the elite, upper-crust Jewish community of 1920s Chicago. Artie is handsome, athletic, and popular, but he possesses a hidden, powerful sadistic streak and a desire to dominate. Judd is a weedy introvert, a genius who longs for a companion whom he can idolize and worship. Obsessed with Nietzsche’s idea of the superhuman, both boys decide to prove that they are above the laws of man by arbitrarily picking and murdering a Jewish boy in their neighborhood.



This new edition of Meyer Levin’s classic literary thriller
Compulsion reintroduces the fictionalized case of Leopold and Loeb – once considered the ‘crime of the century’ – to a new generation. This incisive psychological portrait of two young murderers seized the imagination of an era and is generally recognized as paving the way for the first non-fiction novel.
Compulsion forces us to ask what drives some further into darkness, and some to seek redemption.



Heartbreaking as it is gripping,
Compulsion is written with a tense and penetrating force that led the
Los Angeles Times to call Levin, “the most significant Jewish writer of his times.”

Circa l’autore

Meyer Levin (1905 – 1981) was called by the
Los Angeles Times ‘the most significant American Jewish writer of his times.’ Norman Mailer referred to him as ‘one of the best American writers working in the realistic tradition.’ Throughout his 60 years of professional work, Levin was a constant innovator, reinventing himself and stretching his literary style with remarkable versatility.

When Levin died in 1981 he left behind a remarkable and diverse body of work that not only reflected the incredible life he led but chronicled the development of the entire Jewish consciousness during the 20th century.


Marcia Clark began practicing law as a criminal defense attorney. She became a prosecutor in the L.A. District Attorney’s Office in 1981, and spent ten years in the Special Trials Unit where she handled a number of high profile cases prior to the O.J. Simpson case, including the prosecution of stalker/murderer Robert Bardo, whose conviction for the murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer resulted in legislation that offered victims better protection from stalkers as well as increased punishment for the offenders.

She has published three novels which feature Los Angeles Special Trials prosecutor Rachel Knight –
Guilt by Association, Guilt by Degrees, and
Killer Ambition and is currently at work on her fourth novel.


Gabriel Levin has published five collections of poetry, most recently
Coming Forth By Day (Carcanet, 2014) and a collection of essays
The Dune’s Twisted Edge: Journeys in the Levant (The University of Chicago Press, 2013). He has as well published several collections of translation, including a selection of Yehuda Halevi’s poetry,
Poems from the Diwan (Anvil, 2002). He lives in Jerusalem.