Many people who enjoy bloody murder mysteries turn up their noses at the genuine article. Unfortunately, the most influential haters publish their work in the Times.
The New York Times is the worst. Wrote the critic I will not deign to name in a piece that appeared in that puffed-up publication: "One thing you don't read true crime for is the truth." Thankfully her true-crime reviews are infrequent; otherwise I'd probably have to take blood pressure medication.
Now it seems some of the haters are even true crime authors themselves. Astonishing me to no end, noteworthy true crime author Kate Summerscale gave her own genre a tongue-lashing in the London Times today.
Remarks the prize-winning author of The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher:
True crime is a sleazy, uneasy genre. Accounts of murder, in newspapers and in books, seem to prey on suffering and to play to their readers' darkest fantasies.
After that provocative, self-loathing remark, she goes on to discuss her own book in some detail.
Frankly, I was astonished by the success of her book. Another look at Constance Kent? {Oh, s**t, I've given away the ending to the clueless, haven't I?} And here I assumed that the case had already been, em, pardon, but, done to death already. Silly me. Summerscale has cleverly reintroduced an apparently forgotten case to readers on several continents by presenting it as a mystery and the case itself as some sort of watershed.
In her Times essay today, the author even goes so far as to claim that the first book about the "Road Hill murder," which (she says) was The Great Crime of 1860, "was perhaps the first book-length account of any single murder."
Well, now, I feel much better. The author who hates her genre doesn't have any clew what she is talking about. Book-length examinations of individual murder cases came long, long before 1860.
I think of Eugene Aram, the schoolteacher convicted of murder in 1759, who inspired many books in the centuries that have passed since then. The Life and Trial of Eugene Aram is one that leaps to mind at once; it came out in 1832, perhaps as a reprint at that, and wasn't the first book on said depraved intellectual. I want to insert something tart here about modern examples of depraved intellectuals, but I'll leave it alone.
Laura, I love you! That book has been praised as being the 8th wonder of the world over here, and here's me been thnking " It's yet another book about Constance Kent and it's pretentious and derivative". It isn't just me!
Posted by: Fiz | October 04, 2008 at 04:20 AM
Thanks, Fiz. We have been thinking the same thing and not saying it! I've been reading those reviews too and it's really made me wonder. Martin Edwards liked it, so I kept mum. I haven't read the book yet either. I have a rule: If I can't say something nice, I don't say anything. If I don't think I'll like a book, I don't read it.
But when the author came out with the curious "sleazy" remark, well.
The success of that book has me reassessing quite a few things, not the least of which is my assumption that any case that has been a subject of one of Edmund Pearson's essays has already been done "properly."
What amazed me too is that it's never been presented as a book about Constance Kent but instead focused on the detective and the development of the mystery genre, per reviews. But add the author's inaccurate statement in the Times about the 1860 book, easily disproven in a one-minute Google Books search, I have to wonder about the reliability of her research on the development of mystery fiction (if in fact she did any research, or merely guessed, and regurgitated the research of others).
Was her book intended for the mystery genre audience and not the true crime crowd? Does that explain why she takes this swipe at true crime?
-Laura
Posted by: LJ | October 04, 2008 at 05:10 AM
You said
The New York Times is the worst. Wrote the critic I will not deign to name in a piece that appeared in that puffed-up publication: "One thing you don't read true crime for is the truth."
Funny, I'd have said one thing you don't read the New York Times for is the truth.
Posted by: Mimi | October 04, 2008 at 09:43 AM
As far as I'm concerned, the New York Times (for the most part) lost its credibility a long time ago. They are an arrogant and biased bunch, to be sure, and they attempt to create news rather than just report it. And let's not talk about television reporting in this country; it's an absolute joke. You need to look no farther than Keith Olbermann to see how unbelievable things have become. The only redeeming factor here is their inability to fool most people, at least the more cerebral among us.
Posted by: Kevin M. Sullivan | October 04, 2008 at 02:29 PM
>>>one thing you don't read the New York Times for is the truth.
har har! Good one, sad but true.
Posted by: LJ | October 04, 2008 at 03:30 PM
>>>They are an arrogant and biased bunch, to be sure, and they attempt to create news rather than just report it. And let's not talk about television reporting in this country; it's an absolute joke.
Kevin -- I've taken to watching BBC America's news shows when I want to get the news minus nonsense and spin.
Posted by: LJ | October 04, 2008 at 03:32 PM
Laura, the BBC is not what it was . It's very PC now and I don't wholly trust it. I go to Reuters for news now.
Posted by: Fiz | October 04, 2008 at 04:58 PM
I wouldn't call it "true crime" as such, except she means it to be a "new look" at the case, but it isn't, and a lot of what she says has been regurgitated from other books. Whicher was a source of great fascination to the Victorians, but there are several other books about him, and Dickens' dectective in "Bleak House" is based on Whicher. She's about 150 years too late!
Posted by: Fiz | October 04, 2008 at 05:02 PM
LJ--
Yes, I've enjoyed the BBC in the past, but I'm kinda like fiz now inasmuch as I am suspicious of their motivations. I feel they lean too far to the left, and if they're not careful, they will be as bad as what we have over here. Still, they're practically right-wingers when compared to MSNBC.
Posted by: Kevin M. sullivan | October 04, 2008 at 09:41 PM
Just stumbled onto your site from 100 History Blogs-and so glad I did! You've got a fascinating thing going here. I'm looking forward to exploring. :)
Curious--have you read Josephine Tey's _The Daughter of Time_?? It's a mystery novel, but it deals with a real case--that of Britain's King Richard III and the death of the two princes in the Wars of the Roses era. It thoroughly presents evidence, using the fictional storyline to propel the investigation. Don't know if that would count as a true crime novel, but it's got the right stuff for those interested.
Posted by: Bethany | October 06, 2008 at 01:26 PM
I agree with you, even though I must admit to having some real moments of self-loathing in relation to this genre, myself.
But I have always found the dichotomy between people just loving suspense/mystery novels and hating true crime confounding. I don't have any such barriers in my head, but it's pretty common apparently.
If I weren't so tired I'd go on, but you and I have discussed this over e-mail. You probably know how I feel :)
Good post.
Posted by: Dark Side Steve | October 06, 2008 at 05:19 PM
Bethany - that's an interesting title I hadn't heard of before - thanks for the recommendation. I am close to finished with the complete true crime shelves at my local library - I'll put The Daughter of Time on the fiction list.
Posted by: LJ | October 06, 2008 at 08:03 PM
>>I must admit to having some real moments of self-loathing in relation to this genre, myself.
A long sigh. Woe be unto the long-suffering defenders of true crime, inflicted on one side by the slings of publishers with poor taste and on the other by the arrows of critics who judge the entire shelf by the worst examples.
Posted by: LJ | October 06, 2008 at 08:06 PM
Well, I've just given her the review she deserves on Amazon.co, which I copied to you, Laura! Miaow!
Posted by: Fiz | October 07, 2008 at 10:45 AM
Oh wow, I just got the patronising comment that this wasn't a true crime book but a history book! Like heck it is, I'm a flipping history graduate!
Posted by: Fiz | October 12, 2008 at 11:26 AM
I'm in the last few chapters of the Summerscale book now, and there is no way she can claim it does not belong in True Crime. She really must have read some pitiful exemplars of the species, if she won't own the relationship.
Not having read any of the previous literature about the case, I am not in a very good position to judge if her book is derivative; but I do think she does a good job of putting the case into historical context and relating it to the popular culture of the time, the writings of Wilkie Collins in particular. Or I did until her mistake about first-ever-book-on-a-murder was demonstrated above. Now I do feel a bit let down....
Posted by: An Avid Reader | December 07, 2008 at 01:22 PM