The Booker Longlist

It’s mid-March which means I am currently knee-deep in the Booker Prize’s longlist. I don’t read every book, but I do try to read every one I find remotely intriguing. I was unspeakably grateful this year that most of the selections are very short. In general, I like the style and structure of shorter works, but I also find that I need them right now to help propel me out of my reading slump.

I have been improving, and most of that has been due to shorter works and giving myself permission to actually DNF the longer things that I am unlikely to finish. I used to just leave them in my stacks and let them exude an aura of dread and despair. That’s not helpful for me. That continually made me feel worse about the books I did choose to read. Why did I do that to myself?

So, our bookish friends and a few Little Free Libraries will end up with the things my library cannot hold anymore. And you know what? That feels so good.

True Crime

Mary S Hartman’s Victorian Murderesses brought me straight back to the true crime books I used to read as kid. My favourite writer was Max Haines, a fellow Canadian who wrote a column called ‘Crime Flashback’ for the Toronto Sun in the 1970s. Hartman definitely taps into the precise, stark, snappy way that Haines wrote about crime and digs deeper, gives the reader all of the information they crave, as well as the context and forces surrounding the crimes, criminals, and their eventual punishments.

Victorian Murderesses contains twelve cases, paired to make six chapters. Hartman uses comparison to illustrate crime and punishment in the Victorian era and how perception shifted depending on class, culture, and gender. She takes apart the act itself, but also the societal forces that interpreted, defined it, and then sought to explain it.

Through the Feminist Lens

The point of the book is not just about Victorian murderesses and their crimes, but about the world they lived in, and whether or not they were indeed guilty or merely guilty because they were deemed so in the court of public opinion. She takes apart how forgiving the populace was of some crimes committed by women and how damning they were of others, seeking to question just what it meant to be a woman living in an era where women were treated as little more than property that happened to walk and talk. The pressure to get married, the pressure to marry well, the expectations of keeping house, and the definition of respectability — it was a swirling miasma that many failed to navigate. But what led these women to kill?

Make no mistake, Hartman, like Millett last week, does not excuse these perpetrators for their actions. She does not take away their agency or blame only society for making them killers. She does not search for sympathy where there should be none. Instead, Hartman is more interested in perception. Why some women seemed to be excused even though clearly guilty. While others, who were less certainly guilty, were damned before they even reached the dock.

A Note on Density

I loved this book, but I can admit that it is a large volume that is really quite dense. It’s more of an academic text and is not the sensationalist, reductive true crime that you might be used to from contemporary books or podcasts. Nothing is bite-sized. Hartman takes her time, and she needs to. Expect an introduction, and a conclusion. Expect to spend some time with these cases.

Don’t expect to be given the answers. Don’t expect a quick entertaining read. Hartman asks for serious scholars only, and for the reader to commit to thinking about more than how much blood the scene contained and which gory details are the most disgusting.

A Spring Edit

How do I find the books I don’t want to read? Well, I usually find them buried someplace dusty with a bookmark I don’t remember owning. I dust them off lovingly, I erase an embarrassing inscription (if there is one), and then I bid them goodbye.

I love books. I want them to find the home they deserve even if it’s not on my shelves. I don’t want anything to gather dust. I want it to be enjoyed and treasured and have a spot on a bookshelf that is honoured to receive it.