Book-It '10! Book #79
The Fifty Books Challenge, year two! This was a library request.
Title: The Borden Tragedy: A Memoir of the Infamous Double Murder at Fall River, Mass., 1892 by Rick Geary
Details: Copyright 1997, Nantier Beall Minoustchine Publishing
Synopsis (By Way of Publishers Weekly): "Comics artist Geary returns with another typically superlative work, the third in his series, A Treasury of Victorian Murder. As in his Jack the Ripper, Geary uses a fictional narrator to present a stylish, painstakingly researched treatment of the gruesome 1892 ax-murders of Abby and Andrew Borden in Falls River, Mass., and of the investigation, trial, and public and media spectacle that followed. The unsolved Borden murders have passed into folklore ("Lizzie Borden took an ax, gave her mother forty whacks") and the question of Lizzie's guilt (she was acquitted but remained under suspicion for the rest of her life) remains unanswered in Geary's book. It's Geary's artfully precise reconstruction of turn-of-the-century Falls River that makes his work so haunting, and such a delight. Geary carefully re-creates the layout of the town (complete with maps); the history, quirks and familial resentments of the prominent Borden family; and, of course, the bloody hatchet murders themselves, complete with minute details of the police investigation and a look at the forensic techniques of the time. His marvelous black-and-white drawings alternate a heavy, sensuous line with more delicate linear accents, deftly capturing the architecture, clothing, objects and everyday details of small-town life in the 1890s"
Why I Wanted to Read It: Geary's work has gotten positive reviews from The Onion AV Club and I've been working my way through his various collections.
How I Liked It: Though slim, Geary packs a lot of narrative punch into this book. His choice of panels, "reaction shots", and shadow work are exquisite. The faces lean towards the cartoony (even the face of the story's most famous character), but Geary's settings (especially his interior architecture) is stellar.
The subject (and the greater pop culture impact, something landmark in this case, whose surface is only scratched) could use more time and more telling: Geary's version comes off as an almost condensed primer to the Borden case. However, it's a testament to his skill that he leaves the reader thinking the book better if it were longer rather than the other way around.
Notable: Geary offers an odd but fascinating choice for his back cover. Shadow and line portray Lizzie Bordon and O.J. Simpson, respectively, each with the year of his or her trial underneath (1892 and 1994) and then the following:
• The defendant is a citizen of unblemished reputation and no criminal record, accused of a ghastly double murder.
• The victims (a man and a woman) have been cut repeatedly by a bladed instrument-- in the kind of rage that indicates a highly personal motivation.
• There is no witness to the crime, and the murder weapon cannot be found.
• There is nobody to account for the whereabouts of the accused during the time of the murders.
• The case becomes the focus of media attention worldwide and of heated debate among ordinary folks.
• Strongly maintaining innocence, the wealthy defendant hires the best attorneys available, who establish reasonable doubt, in part, by questioning the competence of the police investigation.
• After a surprisingly brief deliberation, the jury returns a verdict of 'Not Guilty'.
• No evidence, however, points to any other individual, and the defendant remains under a cloud of suspicion.
Title: The Borden Tragedy: A Memoir of the Infamous Double Murder at Fall River, Mass., 1892 by Rick Geary
Details: Copyright 1997, Nantier Beall Minoustchine Publishing
Synopsis (By Way of Publishers Weekly): "Comics artist Geary returns with another typically superlative work, the third in his series, A Treasury of Victorian Murder. As in his Jack the Ripper, Geary uses a fictional narrator to present a stylish, painstakingly researched treatment of the gruesome 1892 ax-murders of Abby and Andrew Borden in Falls River, Mass., and of the investigation, trial, and public and media spectacle that followed. The unsolved Borden murders have passed into folklore ("Lizzie Borden took an ax, gave her mother forty whacks") and the question of Lizzie's guilt (she was acquitted but remained under suspicion for the rest of her life) remains unanswered in Geary's book. It's Geary's artfully precise reconstruction of turn-of-the-century Falls River that makes his work so haunting, and such a delight. Geary carefully re-creates the layout of the town (complete with maps); the history, quirks and familial resentments of the prominent Borden family; and, of course, the bloody hatchet murders themselves, complete with minute details of the police investigation and a look at the forensic techniques of the time. His marvelous black-and-white drawings alternate a heavy, sensuous line with more delicate linear accents, deftly capturing the architecture, clothing, objects and everyday details of small-town life in the 1890s"
Why I Wanted to Read It: Geary's work has gotten positive reviews from The Onion AV Club and I've been working my way through his various collections.
How I Liked It: Though slim, Geary packs a lot of narrative punch into this book. His choice of panels, "reaction shots", and shadow work are exquisite. The faces lean towards the cartoony (even the face of the story's most famous character), but Geary's settings (especially his interior architecture) is stellar.
The subject (and the greater pop culture impact, something landmark in this case, whose surface is only scratched) could use more time and more telling: Geary's version comes off as an almost condensed primer to the Borden case. However, it's a testament to his skill that he leaves the reader thinking the book better if it were longer rather than the other way around.
Notable: Geary offers an odd but fascinating choice for his back cover. Shadow and line portray Lizzie Bordon and O.J. Simpson, respectively, each with the year of his or her trial underneath (1892 and 1994) and then the following:
• The defendant is a citizen of unblemished reputation and no criminal record, accused of a ghastly double murder.
• The victims (a man and a woman) have been cut repeatedly by a bladed instrument-- in the kind of rage that indicates a highly personal motivation.
• There is no witness to the crime, and the murder weapon cannot be found.
• There is nobody to account for the whereabouts of the accused during the time of the murders.
• The case becomes the focus of media attention worldwide and of heated debate among ordinary folks.
• Strongly maintaining innocence, the wealthy defendant hires the best attorneys available, who establish reasonable doubt, in part, by questioning the competence of the police investigation.
• After a surprisingly brief deliberation, the jury returns a verdict of 'Not Guilty'.
• No evidence, however, points to any other individual, and the defendant remains under a cloud of suspicion.