Attorney/college teacher McConnell’s debut is an accomplished re-creation of two notorious murders of young women in the rural gentility of 1880s Connecticut, with a remarkable sense for the inequities and dark places of that vanished era. Near New Haven in 1878, a frightened, illiterate working girl named Mary Stannard was fed arsenic and had her throat slit, almost certainly by her lover Herbert Hayden, a failing minister; three years later, Jennie Cramer, —The Belle of New Haven,— was found dead of arsenic poisoning, following her forced seduction by Jim Malley, a member of the city’s most prominent business family. Both cases created what would now be called a —media circus—; both culminated in grotesque trials which maligned the dead and their survivors, ignored scientific evidence, and freed men who probably killed to conceal obvious violations of then-universal notions of womanly virtue. With a refreshing absence of maudlin declamation, McConnell performs a masterly job of retrieving the lost history of these sensational events. Her crisp prose and comprehensive research make for a lively presentation of many remarkable details as she unfolds a disturbing tale of class-oriented gender discrimination and dramatizes the state criminal justice system in its infancy. (Ordinary citizens and an indiscreet press readily insinuated themselves into the investigation and trial, tainting them both; the grisly Victorian fascination with the misfortunes of others derailed justice still further.) McConnell also examines the repercussions of both murders for the victims— hapless families, not sparing readers the tragic nature of otherwise remote events, and captures the resonance of these crimes within their communities. An intimate, compelling portrait of seamy and disturbing (thus —forgotten—) aspects of the Gilded Age that, in its narrative of yearningly naive young women and socially respectable male predators, offers a sobering augury of our own violent, sexually stratified times.
Pub Date: Nov. 30, 1999
ISBN: 0-275-96297-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Praeger
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1999
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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