If you've ever thought that start-ups and cults had a lot in common, you'll feel validated by NXIVM, a shady business with a messianic leader that quiIf you've ever thought that start-ups and cults had a lot in common, you'll feel validated by NXIVM, a shady business with a messianic leader that quickly morphed into a bizarre sex cult with a messianic leader. Don't Call It a Cult provides all the details you could ever need or want on the whole sordid situation. If you still can't get enough, I also recommend the CBC Uncover podcast Escaping NXIVM and the binge-worthy four-part documentary Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult....more
True crime is not usually my thing, so I was apprehensive when the ARC of We Keep the Dead Close turned up in my mailbox. It looked interesting, but wTrue crime is not usually my thing, so I was apprehensive when the ARC of We Keep the Dead Close turned up in my mailbox. It looked interesting, but would it be lurid and sensationalistic? Fortunately, the answer is a resounding "Nope!" This was like a 400-page New Yorker article, mind-bogglingly well researched and engrossing, with a painstaking amount of scene-setting that pulled me in and made the milieu of 1960s Harvard come alive, for better and for worse.
The ick factor I typically feel for true crime writing, I realized, comes when there's a level of focus on the killer that's almost idealizing, as if murders are just a by-product of their fascinating personalities. We Keep the Dead Close avoids that particular pitfall by concentrating as much on the victim and the time and place as on the potential killer(s). And given that there's more than one suspect, all of them literally suspected by multiple people in the Harvard/archaeology community, delving into their psyches felt necessary to the process of figuring out who did it.
Because that's the other thing about this book: When Cooper started writing it, the murder was unsolved, so although the death isn't trivialized in any way, the book had a page-turning quality for me, born of the desperate need for justice to be served. Because of this, I recommend NOT googling this murder before you start reading. Let yourself find out as the author does, with the full weight of her research behind you. And speaking of the author: Cooper was obsessed with this murder for years, and she does spend some time addressing her own issues that led to this obsession. This feels necessary to the larger story, but at the same time Cooper understands that no one is really here to listen to her talk about herself, and she does an impressive job of balancing it with all the other angles she covers. Really, she juggles so many different elements in this book that it's amazing it works as well as it does.
It's true that all the research did make the book feel a bit long at times, so if I'd written this review immediately after finishing, I might have rounded my 4.5 stars down to 4. But nearly a week later, I remain thoroughly impressed with everything this haunting book accomplished, so I'm rounding up. Recommended!
I won this ARC in a Shelf Awareness giveaway; thank you to the publisher. My opinions, as always, are my own....more
The Third Rainbow Girl is well written and definitely kept me reading, but ultimately I'm just not comfortable with the type of true-crime book where The Third Rainbow Girl is well written and definitely kept me reading, but ultimately I'm just not comfortable with the type of true-crime book where the author takes a brutal murder (two, in this case) and makes it about herself. Eisenberg also sets herself the task of representing Appalachia more accurately than the media tends to, but she only lived there for about a year herself, and I just don't think that's long enough to truly know or be able to explain an entire region. It may be that this book just tried to do too much and didn't really do justice to any of it. I did find The Third Rainbow Girl pretty absorbing, but now that I'm done I feel uncomfortable about the whole thing.
I won this ARC via a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thank you to the publisher....more
Move over, Bad Blood—I've got a new favorite nonfiction read for 2019. The important story Catch and Kill tells—of Harvey Weinstein's horrifying bMove over, Bad Blood—I've got a new favorite nonfiction read for 2019. The important story Catch and Kill tells—of Harvey Weinstein's horrifying behavior and its decades-long cover-up—is disturbing in the extreme. Fortunately, it's also compellingly written by Ronan Farrow, who even manages to scrounge up a few moments of humor from his own experiences of being threatened and spied on in the course of his work. Exhaustively detailed and impressively current, Catch and Kill is one of those books everyone should read. Odds are it'll be on every single year-end best-of list come December; might as well get on it now....more
I'll Be Gone in the Dark does several things very successfully. It reports compellingly on the Golden State Killer and the various law-enforcement perI'll Be Gone in the Dark does several things very successfully. It reports compellingly on the Golden State Killer and the various law-enforcement personnel who tried to track him down—and in some cases, are still trying. It gives a fascinating window into Michelle McNamara's own psyche: why she became interested in serial killers and the effect her fascination has had on her entire life. And most indelibly, for me, it creates an immersive portrait of California during the 1970s and early 1980s—not the major cities everyone's heard of, but the smaller cities, less glamorous and also much less inclined to be expecting crimes like the ones the GSK perpetrated. I genuinely felt I was there, in those suburban towns with their sunny, 75-degree climate, their manicured lawns and freeways and condos. As a result, the creeping menace of the GSK was even more indelible. I still feel it now as I think about I'll Be Gone in the Dark, nearly two weeks after I finished it.
If I had rated and reviewed this book immediately after I finished reading it, I would have given it four stars. Not long after I put it down, though, my conscience started bothering me. In her foreword to I'll Be Gone in the Dark, Gillian Flynn writes about her enthusiasm for true-crime books, and how she deals with the guilt of being entertained by other people's immense suffering by reading only the best—and this book, Flynn is quick to assert, is one of the best. I don't disagree with her assessment of the book's quality, but I'm afraid my guilt wasn't as easily ameliorated as Flynn's. Maybe it's because I very, very rarely read true crime, but I feel kind of upside-down on this book: There wasn't enough that was edifying about it—in terms of insight into serial killers, for example—to justify the rapt absorption I felt while reading about these hideous, cruel, and violent events. This is not to say that I think people who love true-crime books are doing something morally questionable—not at all. Just that for me, who is pretty new to this genre, the riveting reading experience I got may not have been worth the stain the detailed descriptions of sadistic rapes and murders left on my soul. YMMV....more
Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts was one of my favorite reads of 2016 (and possibly of all time), so when I learned that Graywolf Press was rereleasing hMaggie Nelson’s The Argonauts was one of my favorite reads of 2016 (and possibly of all time), so when I learned that Graywolf Press was rereleasing her earlier memoir, The Red Parts, I was ecstatic and snapped it up as soon as possible. It did not disappoint. The Red Parts has an interesting framework: Maggie Nelson was just getting ready to release a book-length poem about her aunt Jane, who’d been the victim of an unsolved murder as a young woman decades prior, when she learned that Jane’s case was being reopened, and a suspect had been nabbed and was going on trial soon. Nelson therefore was in the odd position of doing events for her book about Jane just as the entire story got a new chapter, and potentially a new ending. These meta elements are pretty fascinating, but mainly the book is a fairly straightforward story of the new trial and how Nelson and her family handled it. While The Red Parts may not be as experimental in style as The Argonauts, it features the same shining intelligence and absorbing qualities that are the hallmarks of Nelson’s work. By the time I finished this I’d added every one of Nelson’s other books to my wish list, so it’s safe to say I’ll be back for a few more rounds of what she’s offering....more
Recently I reviewed Janet Reitman's Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion and complained that the book had way too much dRecently I reviewed Janet Reitman's Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion and complained that the book had way too much detail, making it feel like homework. After reading Going Clear, I feel a bit like taking that back. This book, in my opinion, was a little short on detail, particularly about some of scientology's illicit behaviors around the FBI and IRS. I ended up really glad I'd already gotten that information from Reitman's book.
What this book did have, obviously, was a lot more celebrity gossip, and I was definitely here for that. I can't get enough of Tom Cruise's bizarre shenanigans. This book was also more compellingly written than the Reitman book, so I'd be more inclined to recommend it (and its accompanying documentary) to someone looking to get up to speed on the human rights–violating cult of scientology....more
Janet Reitman's Inside Scientology was published more than a year before Lawrence Wright's Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of BeliJanet Reitman's Inside Scientology was published more than a year before Lawrence Wright's Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief, but never made the same kind of splash. Now that I've read it, I understand why. This book essentially begins with the birth of L. Ron Hubbard and provides an intense amount of detail around scientology's founding and history. I was often impatient with what I thought was, frankly, more detail than any general reader really needed, but I thought once I'd finished the book I'd be grateful to have all that background knowledge. But now that I'm done... I still feel like it was a little too much detail. It made the reading experience drag and feel like homework.
Fortunately, the second half of the book moves into the present day and is much livelier. In addition to delving into John Travolta's and Tom Cruise's stories, Reitman also presents the stories of numerous ordinary citizens who were really screwed over by scientology and its increasingly abusive leadership. I already knew the upper ranks of of the scientology organization were capable of terrible things, but still, I was honestly shocked.
Scientology doesn't have a huge presence in Philadelphia but it definitely exists here, and I've seen them recruiting at the train station in Old City. FREE STRESS TEST, their sign reads, and as far as I'm concerned a "religion" becomes a cult when it plays on people's stress, anxiety, or depression to try to pull them in. It's deceptive and targets the most vulnerable of our fellow humans. So I do feel everyone needs the information presented in Inside Scientology and I hope the message has gotten out there. If I'm being honest, though, reading this whole tome probably isn't necessary to get the information you need. I rewatched the Going Clear documentary after reading this, and I would recommend that over Inside Scientology. 3.5 stars, rounded down....more
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