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juushikaTitle: So Brilliantly Clever: Parker, Hulme and the Murder that Shocked the World (Anne Perry and the Murder of the Century)
Author: Peter Graham
Published: New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2013 (2011)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 384
Total Page Count: 153,943
Text Number: 450
Read Because: interest in the subject, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Only the ebook's new title is exploitative; Graham is even-tempered and moderate. Extraneous information is burdened by excessive detail while the limited number of quotes from Pauline's diaries goes unexplained, but on the whole: well-grounded and informative, thoughtful and respectful. But what makes this book fascinating is purely its content: not the fact of a murder, but the circumstances surrounding it.
It's startling how similar So Brilliantly Clever is to Jackson's film Heavenly Creatures—which says something flattering about the research that went into Heavenly Creatures, but says something more significant about this book's tone and, perhaps, the Parker-Hulme murder. Graham takes a broader and more critical view that Jackson, and yet there remains something beautiful, enviable, and utterly convincing in the relationship between Juliet and Pauline; Graham refuses to condone the murder, and yet—in a way he struggles to adequately explain—it feels entirely logical, even justified—yet, still, harrowing. So Brilliantly Clever is exactly what I hoped for, flawed perhaps but more than adequate as a study of something I find entirely compelling.
Author: Peter Graham
Published: New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2013 (2011)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 384
Total Page Count: 153,943
Text Number: 450
Read Because: interest in the subject, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Only the ebook's new title is exploitative; Graham is even-tempered and moderate. Extraneous information is burdened by excessive detail while the limited number of quotes from Pauline's diaries goes unexplained, but on the whole: well-grounded and informative, thoughtful and respectful. But what makes this book fascinating is purely its content: not the fact of a murder, but the circumstances surrounding it.
It's startling how similar So Brilliantly Clever is to Jackson's film Heavenly Creatures—which says something flattering about the research that went into Heavenly Creatures, but says something more significant about this book's tone and, perhaps, the Parker-Hulme murder. Graham takes a broader and more critical view that Jackson, and yet there remains something beautiful, enviable, and utterly convincing in the relationship between Juliet and Pauline; Graham refuses to condone the murder, and yet—in a way he struggles to adequately explain—it feels entirely logical, even justified—yet, still, harrowing. So Brilliantly Clever is exactly what I hoped for, flawed perhaps but more than adequate as a study of something I find entirely compelling.
