Viking

The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust and the Beautiful Killers Who Inspired Chicago

brittany — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

During the 1920s, a rash of killings rocked Chicago. The murderers were young women who drank, and most killed their lovers. Most were white and all-male juries that refused to believe women were capable of cold-blooded murder released most of them. During this time, the crimes were reported in the newspapers by “sob sisters,” female reporters who were able to interview female inmates and victim’s family members.

The Girls of Murder City is about this period in time, two killers in particular, Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner, and a female reporter, Maurine Watkins. Beulah and Belva both killed their lovers after the men threatened to leave them. Both were beautiful, rich, white, and relatively young. The newspapers gave both women a chance to be famous, and both used it to their advantage.

Maurine Watkins was a hardworking, pious Christian who came to Chicago with the plan to use her column to show the evils of the world. Her sarcastic, strong-willed writing was often the only counterpoint to the sob sisters’ tales of woe in the papers. She would eventually use her stories to write the play Chicago, which would become the long-running musical.

The book tells an interesting story about the rise of the “girl gunners” and the creation of Chicago. The problem is that the story feels a bit unfocused. Maurine is not the main focus of the book, but neither are Belva and Beulah (or Chicago characters Velma and Roxie, if you will). The book explores their cases and delves into the lives of the other women in jail with them, but then switches to focus on Maurine. As a result, the story feels a bit shallow. I wanted more from both of the stories. Other narratives, like the story of the murder of Bobby Franks by teenaged killers Leopold and Loeb, are shoehorned into the story and feel tacked on.

Most importantly, the book is very poorly cited. For a while, I did not know if I was reading a non-fiction book or a “non-fiction” fiction book like In Cold Blood. Douglas Perry included details he seemingly could not know unless he had been there. There is an extensive note section in the back of the back of the book, but without explanation as to where each note belonged, reading them was slow going. More confusingly, there are footnotes in the book, but not to the main facts. They function more as author asides. Actual footnotes would have made the book much better, and given it much more authority.

I enjoyed The Girls of Murder City, but it could have been much better.

Written by: Taylor Rhodes, April 12th 2011

Everything Matters!

admin — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Ron Currie, Jr.

Viking

Someone should count how many coming-of-age novels have ever been written that focus on white, male characters. To me, it seems like every time I browse around in a bookstore and skim through the back covers of books in the “New & Hot Fiction” section, the onslaught of these story set-ups just doesn’t end. I realize that some topics never get boring, like love, betrayal, or war. But in a seemingly endless sea of new and existing stories about the teenage and early adult years of white men, it must be incredibly hard to create a story that is exciting and different.

This is where Everything Matters! comes in. Or so I thought. Based on descriptions and reviews elsewhere, I decided to override my own personal annoyance with characters like Holden Caulfield, Pip, or Adrian Healey. Hailed as a small miracle and a delightful read by reviewers at NPR or the New York Times, Everything Matters! is the story of Junior Thibodeau who is born with the knowledge that thirty-six years into his life, an asteroid will destroy the earth and all human life. Written in a quirky, rather unpredictable sequence of countdowns and changing narrative perspectives, the book follows Junior’s life from early moments in his mother’s uterus to the final moment. Junior hears a voice that tells him exactly what will happen, not just in terms of the earth’s demise, but also throughout his life. That would be unusual enough, but Junior is also portrayed as a genius who seems to be able to accomplish anything, including discovering the cure for cancer in only two weeks, if he sets his mind to it. Yet, despite these super-human abilities and an all-encompassing knowledge of the future, Junior must grapple with the fact that no matter what he manages to achieve, the world will still be destroyed.

This is what makes, or should make, Everything Matters! different than other coming-of-age stories. The plot allows for unique opportunities to explore existential questions, to play with the irony of creating a character that is capable of ending suffering from diseases, poverty or global hunger in a situation where none of that really matters. Or does it? And this is where the book falls short. Of 302 pages, only the last thirty or so actually dive into the possibilities that are set up by the story. It is here that Currie tackles, and somewhat heavy-handedly, the “why bother making an effort in life if you know it’s all going to end soon anyway?” questions. The rest of the novel very much gets lost in the sea of other coming-of-age novels. We hear too much about how Junior screws up with the love of his life, how as a result, he spends years getting drunk in cheap, dirty bars and how he still manages to be the hero for his family (and briefly also for all mankind). It’s all too familiar and too much.

Technically, the book is very unique. The narration switches back and forth between the omniscient, all-knowing narrator (the voice that Junior hears) and the various characters in the novel. The book starts with a countdown, but then abandons the countdown for large parts of the book, only to pick it up again toward the end. For someone interested in playing with structure and narration, it might be well worth the read just to see what Currie manages to come up with. However, I often felt that Currie was a bit too much into playing with technique at the expense of the story itself. There were numerous times in the book where I thought that often very bizarre sub-plots were inserted only to incorporate another writer-technicality, with little or no purpose for the content of the story. Again, it was all a little much.

All in all, I can’t say that Everything Matters! did away with my annoyance with yet another supposedly witty but deep story about some white dude in his teens and early adulthood. There is a lot of potential in the set-up to make this a different and exciting read, if Currie lost some of the showing-off of technique and the all too common features of the development of his protagonist. A few stronger female characters would be nice, too. As it stands, Everything Matters! over-promised and under-delivered for me, but I would love to see someone pick up on where the last thirty pages of the novel left off.

Written by: Annette Przygoda, June 18th 2010

Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage

admin — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:58:00 +0000

By Elizabeth Gilbert

Viking

Since I am apparently one of the only women between the ages of twenty-five and seventy-five who hasn’t read Eat, Pray, Love, I was delightfully surprised by Elizabeth Gilbert's latest work, Committed.

Gilbert's engaging prose and witty, self-deprecating style are intriguing, thought provoking, moving, and hilarious. Committed picks up where the first book leaves off. Gilbert and Felipe have been living together happily on several continents, but their domestic bliss is brought to an end when U.S. Immigration detain Felipe at the airport in Dallas and then deport him. The couple is advised that the only way Felipe will be able to enter and live in the U.S. again is if they get married.

Gilbert describes their situation in confessional detail: they want to be together and Felipe needs to travel to America for his business to survive. On the other hand, both have gone through gut wrenching divorces and have sworn never to remarry. Gilbert leaves the country to be by Felipe’s side during the immigration process. As they travel together, she decides to do her own investigation of marriage to try to embrace it fully. Committed is the chronicle of that time.

The pleasure of Committed, for me, was Gilbert’s interweaving of her own story with research on the history of marriage, and the informal interviews she conducted with women from all over the world. In her writing, Gilbert shows the various, often contradictory effects of marriage on women, and she does it in a complex fashion. The chapter “Marriage and Women” begins with anecdotes about Gilbert’s time in Laos, but it could have been subtitled “Mixed Emotions” or “A Cost-Benefit Analysis.”

For example, Gilbert tells us about Joy and Ting. Ting is from a tiny Laotian village and is extremely proud of her daughter Joy, who has received an education and is a skilled weaver. However, Joy’s ability to support her family is a source of both happiness and frustration. The young men in the village are neither as educated as Joy nor are they able to provide an equally large income. Joy’s material betterment effectively ended her marriage prospects within the village.

Gilbert goes on to relate the story of her grandmother, who gave up a fashionable life and successful career to raise seven children in one room of a drafty old farmhouse during the Great Depression. Gilbert’s grandmother claims this was the happiest time of her life, but also hopes Gilbert will not give up writing books to raise a family. The contradictions inherent in how Gilbert’s grandmother feels about her life and her granddaughter’s life embody the experience of many modern women.

Gilbert captures the complicated emotions surrounding marriage perfectly, and her intelligent analysis, combined with her obvious heart and likability, make Committed a thoughtful and gratifying read. I’ve already ordered Eat, Pray, Love.

Written by: Jennifer Wedemeier, February 23rd 2010

Traveling With Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story

admin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 09:00:00 +0000

By Sue Monk Kidd, Ann Kidd Taylor

Viking

Traveling With Pomegranates tells the two parallel stories of its authors, a mother and daughter. The two women learn about themselves while abroad in Greece and France, as well as in their respective homes in South Carolina.

Ann comes to terms with her disappointment in receiving a rejection letter from the only affordable school offering a Master's degree in Greek history. During the year that follows, she is plagued with depression that follows this blow to her confidence. While traveling with her mother, Ann maps out her path as a writer, even though she had long resisted following in her mothers footsteps. (She didn't want to risk a lifetime of being compared to her mother.) Ann finds out she a unique knack for travel writing, which helps her to preserve her independent spirit.

Sue’s discoveries bring forth the ideas, imagery, and symbolism that formed her hugely successful book, The Secret Life of Bees. While Traveling With Pomegranates contains some of the same Southern magic and mystique as The Secret Life of Bees, it hits a little closer to home for the average reader. These women’s lives are at once ordinary and extraordinary, but the way they tell their tale of reconnecting with the energizing spirit of Greece is inspiring.

With Greek mythology guiding their tour, Sue and Ann are each profoundly influenced Persephone, Demeter, and various portrayals of Mary they find in various places: a cave, cathedrals, a convent in the mountains, the coast of South Carolina, books, the tiny pomegranate charms they wear. This modern mom-and-daughter travel story tells of the magic of Greece, which the pair find in odd coincidences and signs they encounter. The magic for the reader is in their scintillating descriptions of the country's architecture, taxi drivers, performers, and lovers.

The connection between these two is exceptional. The cohesion of their experiences and concern for each other creates a mutual understanding and emotional response to their trip that all of us an learn from. Traveling With Pomegranates imparts wisdom in its perspectives on accepting rejection, coping with depression, managing life changes after marriage, settling into menopause, and seizing the day.

Written by: Heather Irvine, February 23rd 2010