![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juushikaOh, this is a hard batch of books—all have selling points, all are just okay.
I've recently painted the mudroom, breakfast nook, and most of the kitchen, interconnected rooms visible from one another, and which-book-went-with-which-paint has gotten fuzzy in my memory. This is from the breakfast nook, Devon's room, and the mudroom respectively, unless they're not! They're reviewed out of order because it took me a while to tackle my complicated response to Alligator Candy.
Title: The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women
Author: Kate Moore
Narrator: Angela Brazil
Published: HighBridge, 2017
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 480
Total Page Count: 408,980
Text Number: 1534
Read Because: more morbid nonfiction while painting, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review:The radium girls were dial painters working with radium paints, many of whom later developed and died of radium poisoning. This is a great subject—the combo of uncaring corporations, vulnerable workers, and longterm ramifications of cutting-edge technology is perpetually relevant, and the litigation that followed is a testament to the value (although certainly not the efficacy) of the legal system. Moreover, radium poisoning is a uniquely awful form of the always awful, always compelling gamut of radiation sickness—it'd've been hard for me not to like this.
But often I didn't! The writing is underwhelming, with too many attempts at pathos in the effort to humanize the story—some work, sometimes quite well, but more often the turns of phrase are corny and sentimental. In audio, the reading is equally bad (super stilted). I'd glad I read this, the subject is horrific and captivating, but I didn't enjoy reading it.
Title: Alligator Candy: A Memoir
Author: David Kushner
Narrator: Bronson Pinchot
Published: Novel Audio, 2016
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 250
Total Page Count: 409,230
Text Number: 1535
Read Because: more true crime while painting, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: When Kushner was 4, his 11-year-old brother was murdered in a random assault. This is more grief memoir than true crime, and it got to me more than other examples of its genre, often despite itself (particularly the audio reading) (I don't think that cry-reading can ever work, especially given that I, like many people, listen to audiobooks sped up)—so I suspect I care because of Kushner's family. They're New York Jews who moved to Florida, I'm invested in that demographic, and I gained a lot from reading about the relationship between their Judaism and their grief. I also appreciate the non-linear, cyclical narrative; many reviews call it repetitive, but it's honest to Kushner's evolving relationship with his brother's murder and therefore at the heart of the grief memoir.
But true-crime-grief-memoirs understandably tend to be biased, and this is no exception. The true crime elements are necessary but secondary, factual but unreliable, and feel incomplete—which in a capital case is a particularly glaring oversight. I liked this, it affected me, and it tells me I should probably be reading more about grief. But it's flawed, and while some flaws are acceptable (like the triteness and banality of grief, no matter how exceptional its source), the flaws in the true crime element are less so.
Title: The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream: The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer
Author: Dean Jobb
Narrator: Steven Crossley
Published: Algonquin Books/Workman Publishing (but my library has it listed as Hachette Audio?), 2021
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 390
Total Page Count: 412,340
Text Number: 1551
Read Because: more true crime while painting, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A transatlantic Victorian-era serial killer who targeted vulnerable women, many of them sex workers, and killed by poisoning. If you, like me, looked this up because "the murderous Dr. Cream" sounds innately funny, then good news: contemporary news reports made many puns on his name, and the closing sections in this book repeatedly summarize "Cream's crimes."
Anyway, this is ... fine. I like the structure, which opens with the London cases that resulted in Cream's final conviction, and then backtracks to explore Cream's background and earlier crimes approximately as revealed by the investigation. I like less that this is written almost in-period, which includes reiterating period prejudices, particularly against sex workers; only the closing sections address the way that these prejudices aided Cream and hampered police investigation. And, as often in true crime, I'd like a deeper read on Cream's psychology—particularly, he made repeated, failed attempts at blackmail that functionally served as confessions, which seems at odds with his lack of remorse. (After reading about Richard Molineux in The Devil's Gentleman—shared time period, also a male poisoner, but that case and book are both much more concerned with gender—I'd also like more about that subject.) Interesting serial killer, adequate coverage, but my wealth of lingering questions indicates I wanted more.
I've recently painted the mudroom, breakfast nook, and most of the kitchen, interconnected rooms visible from one another, and which-book-went-with-which-paint has gotten fuzzy in my memory. This is from the breakfast nook, Devon's room, and the mudroom respectively, unless they're not! They're reviewed out of order because it took me a while to tackle my complicated response to Alligator Candy.
Title: The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women
Author: Kate Moore
Narrator: Angela Brazil
Published: HighBridge, 2017
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 480
Total Page Count: 408,980
Text Number: 1534
Read Because: more morbid nonfiction while painting, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review:The radium girls were dial painters working with radium paints, many of whom later developed and died of radium poisoning. This is a great subject—the combo of uncaring corporations, vulnerable workers, and longterm ramifications of cutting-edge technology is perpetually relevant, and the litigation that followed is a testament to the value (although certainly not the efficacy) of the legal system. Moreover, radium poisoning is a uniquely awful form of the always awful, always compelling gamut of radiation sickness—it'd've been hard for me not to like this.
But often I didn't! The writing is underwhelming, with too many attempts at pathos in the effort to humanize the story—some work, sometimes quite well, but more often the turns of phrase are corny and sentimental. In audio, the reading is equally bad (super stilted). I'd glad I read this, the subject is horrific and captivating, but I didn't enjoy reading it.
Title: Alligator Candy: A Memoir
Author: David Kushner
Narrator: Bronson Pinchot
Published: Novel Audio, 2016
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 250
Total Page Count: 409,230
Text Number: 1535
Read Because: more true crime while painting, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: When Kushner was 4, his 11-year-old brother was murdered in a random assault. This is more grief memoir than true crime, and it got to me more than other examples of its genre, often despite itself (particularly the audio reading) (I don't think that cry-reading can ever work, especially given that I, like many people, listen to audiobooks sped up)—so I suspect I care because of Kushner's family. They're New York Jews who moved to Florida, I'm invested in that demographic, and I gained a lot from reading about the relationship between their Judaism and their grief. I also appreciate the non-linear, cyclical narrative; many reviews call it repetitive, but it's honest to Kushner's evolving relationship with his brother's murder and therefore at the heart of the grief memoir.
But true-crime-grief-memoirs understandably tend to be biased, and this is no exception. The true crime elements are necessary but secondary, factual but unreliable, and feel incomplete—which in a capital case is a particularly glaring oversight. I liked this, it affected me, and it tells me I should probably be reading more about grief. But it's flawed, and while some flaws are acceptable (like the triteness and banality of grief, no matter how exceptional its source), the flaws in the true crime element are less so.
Title: The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream: The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer
Author: Dean Jobb
Narrator: Steven Crossley
Published: Algonquin Books/Workman Publishing (but my library has it listed as Hachette Audio?), 2021
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 390
Total Page Count: 412,340
Text Number: 1551
Read Because: more true crime while painting, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A transatlantic Victorian-era serial killer who targeted vulnerable women, many of them sex workers, and killed by poisoning. If you, like me, looked this up because "the murderous Dr. Cream" sounds innately funny, then good news: contemporary news reports made many puns on his name, and the closing sections in this book repeatedly summarize "Cream's crimes."
Anyway, this is ... fine. I like the structure, which opens with the London cases that resulted in Cream's final conviction, and then backtracks to explore Cream's background and earlier crimes approximately as revealed by the investigation. I like less that this is written almost in-period, which includes reiterating period prejudices, particularly against sex workers; only the closing sections address the way that these prejudices aided Cream and hampered police investigation. And, as often in true crime, I'd like a deeper read on Cream's psychology—particularly, he made repeated, failed attempts at blackmail that functionally served as confessions, which seems at odds with his lack of remorse. (After reading about Richard Molineux in The Devil's Gentleman—shared time period, also a male poisoner, but that case and book are both much more concerned with gender—I'd also like more about that subject.) Interesting serial killer, adequate coverage, but my wealth of lingering questions indicates I wanted more.
