NONFICTION

The Borden Murders: Lizzie Borden & the Trial of the Century

by Sarah Miller
304p. bibliog. ebook available. index. notes. photos. Random/Schwartz & Wade Bks. Jan. 2016. Tr $17.99. ISBN 9780553498080; lib. ed. $20.99. ISBN 9780553498097.
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RedReviewStarGr 7 Up—Lizzie Borden: the name alone conjures up the legendary story of a daughter who brutally hacked her parents to death with an axe. And yet, as this thoroughly researched account demonstrates, the story is far more complicated. Miller untangles a complex story of a misunderstood young woman, difficult family dynamics, sensationalized news stories, bungling detectives, and more. Borden's father and stepmother were murdered with an axe or hatchet of some kind while both Borden and the family housekeeper were at home. The evidence against Borden was circumstantial at best and nonexistent at worst. Nonetheless, she was indicted for the crime and sent to jail for the duration of the investigation and succeeding trial. Miller carefully walks readers through the cast of characters, the mores and customs of the time, legal procedures, varying newspaper accounts, and the enormous amount of gossip that all became part of the landscape surrounding this crime. Extensive use of primary source documents reveals that much is still not known about the case. Fans of the podcast Serial will find much to enjoy here, as each chapter reveals a new piece of the puzzle and examines it from every angle available. Photographs, documents, and other ephemera are included and round out the narrative, creating a wonderfully full and accessible account of this moment in history.
VERDICT Though readers will know the outcome of the trial from the very beginning, they will be invested in the narrative. Sure to be a hit with true crime fans everywhere.
Reviewed by Jody Kopple, Shady Hill School, Cambridge, MA
Miller relates both the immediate events leading up to the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden and the legal proceedings against their daughter, Lizzie Andrews Borden. By giving a play-by-play commentary of this whole affair, Miller is able to also examine various swaths of late-nineteenth-century American social, cultural, and political history. Despite reading like a novel, The Borden Murders nevertheless scrupulously hews to the facts. Bib., ind.
Lizzie Borden took an axe, / Gave her mother forty whacks. / When she saw what she had done, / She gave her father forty-one. "Today," Miller writes in her introduction, "everything most people know of Lizzie Andrew Borden is contained in those four singsong lines of doggerel. And nearly everything in those four lines is wrong." Miller then proceeds to relate both the immediate events leading up to the crime and the arguments for and against Borden that would eventually be used in the legal proceedings. The details sometimes can seem overwhelming, but by giving a play-by-play commentary of this whole affair, Miller is able to examine not just the enigma of Lizzie and the Borden family's dynamics but also various swaths of late-nineteenth-century American social, cultural, political history that often receive extended treatment in sidebars. She also draws heavily on primary source quotations along wth interspersed maps and photographs, and everything is documented in the notes and bibliography in the back matter. The Borden Murders joins the growing body of narrative nonfiction that, despite reading like a novel and looking like a novel (in terms of its trim size), nevertheless scrupulously hews to the facts. jonathan hunt
 , Nov 01, 2015

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