It seems amazing that I’ve never heard of this string of attacks and murders in Austin, although I seem to recall hearing of the legend of the mysterious woman in white (apparently the ghost of the murdered Eula) when I was a student at UT. Or maybe from my visits to my grandparents in Austin as a kid?

The author does an excellent job of presenting the events and his research findings objectively. The narrative is not at all dry – it’s engaging while paying the reader the compliment of avoiding sensationalism and emotional manipulation. I was as fascinated by the story of historical Austin, its people and growth and politics and race relations, as I was by the mystery of the attacks. The insight into the process (and limits) of 19^th century forensics, law enforcement, and justice, was compelling as well.

Audiobook, borrowed from my public library via Overdrive. Clint Jordan provides an excellent performance with an authentic regional voice, although his mispronunciation of a few place names was a little distracting. For example, Seguin is “suh-GEEN”, not “SEG-win”. The author reads the afterword in his own voice, which is even more authentically, delightfully, regional.

Update:

I gave the hardcover copy to my Dad for his birthday. The bound copy is full of goodies, like maps and photos, and contains a reference index. My dad, a native Austinite, is also a history buff who particularly loves the late 1800s, and was so delighted with this book that he also sent a copy to his brother. 

                I first read Trifles when I was thinking about teaching it. It is a marvelous play, and to be honest, not everyone gets it right away. A shame really, but that seems to be the point. The devil is in the details as it were and where does guilt truly lie is a question that concerns everyone, everywhere. Society too, sometimes at least, does shoulder some of the blame.

                This book is about the murder trial that inspired Trifles for Susan Glaspell covered the trial in her years as a reporter. One night, a wife wakes up and finds her husband dying beside her in bed. He has been stuck by an axe. She gets her children, the doctor, the law, and eventually after her husband is buried, she is arrested and charged for his murder.

                While the authors cannot solve the murder after so many years remove, they do offer possible scenarios. At the very least, the wife’s guilt is in question simply because of how the evidence was handled. The book details not only the crime, but the trial as well as dealing with the life of a homestead wife. Believe me when I say, Little House on The Prairie (the TV series) got it all wrong.

                The book offers not only a look at how women were treated at the turn of the century as well as how family was viewed. In some ways, we have changed, but in others, modern society still carries the echo. We all should do well to pay attention to this story.

Autodidactic Rabbit Trails: Where I meander around the web, bring back links of things that are oddly interconnected in some way, and in theory we all learn interesting things.

I was having one of my usual online days of wandering around via google - but I'll only share a few links before getting to the murder part. Er, the murder mentioned in the title that is. Because there are two murders in this post.

First I really wanted to run down a copy of Susan Glaspell's novel, Fugitive's Return (1929). If you've heard of Glaspell (and her wikipedia page makes for interesting reading itself - more bio here) it's possibly from the excellent short story Jury of Her Peers, about a murder and the accused, and how the women see things differently than the men. The story was rediscovered by various literary historians/authors and is now often used in anthologies and women's studies classes. If you haven't read it before here're some links:

Wikipedia page: Jury of Her Peers

Full text of story: Jury of Her Peers (and also here)

It's a fairly quick read, and I remember enjoying Glaspell's style. So when I bumped into a reference to her online, I found myself wanting to read Fugitive's Return, which is a novel that's somewhat autobiographical in covering the time when Glaspell and her husband left the US to go live in Greece. (Details on this bio page, where it's called "what many consider to be her greatest novel.") (Also, scroll down on this page for, randomly, a photo of Glaspell and her husband in Greece, with him wearing traditional Greek garb for some reason.) But nope, it's out of print. Sad reader moment. But this happens a lot when I'm looking up old books.

Then I spent a bit more time reading about Glaspell - and specifically the murder in Jury of Her Peers. I had no idea that it was based on a real murder (see the above wikipedia link for the short story), or that Glaspell had covered it in a series of articles for the Des Moines Daily News:

Glaspell articles on the Hossack Case

That particular page is part of a website for the book Midnight Assassin (by Patricia Bryan and Thomas Wolf), which chronicles the murder. (And I've had it on my wish list but has yet to go on sale, sigh.) Because I'm a greedy reader, I did peek at the "what the authors are up to next" page (I can never resist those), and Patricia Bryan has a few paragraphs on her research of the case of John Wesley Elkins, "an eleven-year old boy who was arrested for the murder of his father and stepmother in an isolated Iowa farmhouse in 1889." And of course I had to know more.

Bryan doesn't have a book out about it yet, but there's the next best thing - a 48 page long article she authored, and that's the meat of this recommendation post, because it's a good read:

John Wesley Elkins, Boy Murderer, and His Struggle for Pardon
Patricia L. Bryan, University of North Carolina
State Historical Society of Iowa: The Annals of Iowa, Vol 69 No 3 (Summer 2010), pps 261-307

Most of the footnotes are to primary source documents too, so this is not material you'd bump into elsewhere. Warning, I'm now going to launch into book review mode, even if it is 48 pages, because it's interesting history.

This is the second book by Susan Harris and I can thoroughly recommend it. The story follows on well from the first book and develops well into its own throughout the book. As usual Susan captures the personalities of the characters and each one has their own little quirks. The characters develop well throughout the book, to where you love and hate them at the same time. Some truths come out in this book, you learn about Luca's past, about Cassie's destiny and what is the link between Archer and Luca! The only criticism I would have about the book is the ending. I can understand why Susan has ended like she has, because clearly there is a sequel, but for me it ended to sharply. I think perhaps the ending would have been better had it been slightly earlier, when a decision was made and told to Cassie. But it then continued on then it ended, and it seemed just a bit too sudden. However, it didn't detract from the book, and I cannot wait for the next book in the series. The ending for me is what stopped it being a 5 because i just sat there trying to work out if I had lost some pages form the kindle. But read the book, it is absolutely superb.