Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit, and Obsession

by Sarah Weinman, Patrick Radden Keefe (Introduction)

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

From crime fiction to true crime, Sarah Weinman is building a work of books that establish her as the 21st century’s expert in both genres. You are guaranteed to read the 13 true-crime essays here as fast as you’d binge episodes of your favorite true-crime podcast.

An NPR Best Book of the Year

A New York Times New & Noteworthy Book

A brilliant anthology of modern true-crime writing that illustrates the appeal of this powerful and popular genre, edited and curated by Sarah Weinman, the award-winning author of The Real Lolita

The appeal of true-crime stories has never been higher. With podcasts like My Favorite Murder and In the Dark, bestsellers like I’ll Be Gone in the Dark and Furious Hours, and TV hits like American Crime Story and Wild Wild Country, the cultural appetite for stories of real people doing terrible things is insatiable.

Acclaimed author ofThe Real Lolita and editor of Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s (Library of America) and Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives (Penguin), Sarah Weinman brings together an exemplary collection of recent true crime tales. She culls together some of the most refreshing and exciting contemporary journalists and chroniclers of crime working today.  Michelle Dean’s “Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter To Be Sick” went viral when it first published and is the basis for the TV showThe Act and Pamela Colloff’s “The Reckoning,” is the gold standard for forensic journalism.  There are 13 pieces in all and as a collection, they showcase writing about true crime across the broadest possible spectrum, while also reflecting what makes crime stories so transfixing and irresistible to the modern reader.

   

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062839886
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	07/28/2020
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	431,339
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 7.80(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Sarah Weinman is the author of Scoundrel and The Real Lolita and the editor, most recently, of Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit & Obsession. She was a 2020 National Magazine Award finalist for reporting and a Calderwood Journalism Fellow at MacDowell, and her work has appeared in New York magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, and the Washington Post. Weinman writes the crime column for the New York Times Book Review and lives in New York City and Northampton, MA.

Table of Contents

Introduction Patrick Radden Keefe ix

Editor's Note xiii

Part I Narrative Features

Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter to Be Sick, Gypsy Wanted Her Mom Murdered Michelle Dean 3

The Reckoning Pamela Colloff 35

Jennifer Pan's Revenge Karen K. Ho 83

The Perfect Man Who Wasn't Rachel Monroe 103

Part II Where Crime Meets Culture

Out Came the Girls Alex Mar 131

The End of Evil Sarah Marshall 169

The Ethical Dilemma of Highbrow True Crime Alice Bolin 227

The Lost Children of "Runaway Train" Elon Green 241

The True Crime Story Behind a 1970s Cult Feminist Film Classic Sarah Weinman 255

Part III Justice and Society

What Bullets Do to Bodies Jason Fagone 275

Checkpoint Nation Melissa Del Bosque 303

How a Dubious Forensic Science Spread Like a Virus Leora Smith 325

"I Am a Girl Now," Sage Smith Wrote. Then She Went Missing Emma Copley Eisenberg 353

Acknowledgments 383

Other Notable Crime Stories: What to Read, Listen To, and Watch 385

Contributors 389

Permissions 395

Editorial Reviews

★ 05/25/2020

Weinman (The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World) provides a worthy successor to the Best American Crime Reporting annual series in this thoughtful and wide-ranging true crime anthology, which includes 13 previously published essays. The recent shift in reporting such stories from the victim’s perspective is exemplified in the deeply sad retelling of the 1966 University of Texas mass shooting, Pamela Colloff’s “The Reckoning: The Story of Claire Wilson.” Wilson was seriously injured by the sniper who carried out a shooting spree from the UT Tower, killing Wilson’s boyfriend and the baby she was carrying at the time. Sarah Marshall’s disturbing “The End of Evil” details her struggle to decide whether serial killer Ted Bundy should be thought of as belonging “to a separate species from the rest of us.” And in an era when true crime podcasts and TV shows continue to proliferate, Alice Bolin’s “The Ethical Dilemma of Highbrow True Crime” details the problems of such popular fare, which often contains unverified and potentially libelous speculations. The superior quality of these essays begs for future volumes. Agent: David Patterson, Stuart Krichevsky Literary. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Irresistible.” — People, “Best New Books of the Week”

“This spine-tingling true crime anthology....[looks] beyond killers and victims and at systemic and institutionalized depravity.” — Shelf Awareness, starred review

“Moves the needle closer to a version of the genre where crime is systemic abuse, baked into the work of institutions designed to protect us.” — Jezebel

“Superb . . . one of the best true crime books of the year.” — NPR.org

“An excellent anthology . . . Weinman has done more than create entertainment . . . she challenges the reader to use true crime as a lens to explore the world around us.” — BookPage

“Thoughtful and wide-ranging. . . . The superior quality of these essays begs for future volumes.”  — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“With nuance and sensitivity, Weinman curates essays that consider the explosion of interest in true crime, stories from the perspectives of victims, and tales that present new information about notorious killers. . . . This enthralling volume insists that there can and should be humanity within true crime.”   — Library Journal (starred review)

"Essential reading for all true crime fans." — Booklist

From the Publisher

An excellent anthology . . . Weinman has done more than create entertainment . . . she challenges the reader to use true crime as a lens to explore the world around us.

BookPage

"Essential reading for all true crime fans."

Booklist

Irresistible.

“Best New Books of the Week” People

This spine-tingling true crime anthology....[looks] beyond killers and victims and at systemic and institutionalized depravity.

Shelf Awareness

Superb . . . one of the best true crime books of the year.

NPR.org

Moves the needle closer to a version of the genre where crime is systemic abuse, baked into the work of institutions designed to protect us.

Jezebel

"Essential reading for all true crime fans."

Booklist

★ 05/01/2020

Our fascination with true crime disturbs some—after all, aren't we exploiting victims by enjoying the stories of their deaths? Not necessarily. With nuance and sensitivity, Weinman (The Real Lolita) curates essays that consider the explosion of interest in true crime, stories from the perspectives of victims, and tales that present new information about notorious killers. Prolific and masterful essayists explore our deepest fears, our desires, our need to be valued, and our tendency as a species to observe and learn from one another's misfortune. Michelle Dean proves the adage "truth is stranger than fiction" with the tale of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, a victim of Munchausen's by proxy who killed her abusive mother; Alex Mar's account of the "Slender Man" stabbings offers a rich, layered contemplation of female adolescence; Jason Fagone shadows a trauma surgeon who treats victims of gun violence; and Alice Bolin muses on why we draw a distinction between prestige true crime shows and pulpy, "lowbrow" ones. Each piece is gripping and demands attention and introspection. VERDICT This enthralling volume insists that there can and should be humanity within true crime. Whether readers are spellbound or disgusted by the genre, this is a must.—Ahliah Bratzler, Indianapolis P.L.

Library Journal

2020-05-04
A collection of perceptive essays reveals the range of true-crime writing featured in magazines today.

The essays, all published in the past few years, veer away from the typical true-crime formula, which tends to focus, as editor Weinman notes, on “beautiful dead white girls.” In this collection, women are at least as likely to be perpetrators of crime as victims, and the contributors are hyperaware, sometimes to a fault, of their inherent fallibility in reporting the truth of the events they're considering. Weinman, who has vast experience in the genre, divides the book into three sections. The first includes relatively traditional crime stories told from unusual angles. Pamela Colloff's careful, thorough “The Reckoning,” for example, considers the 1966 University of Texas clock tower shooting not from the point of view of the gunman but by looking closely and compassionately at the decadeslong effects of the shooting on Claire Wilson, who was wounded in the tragedy and lost the baby with whom she was eight months pregnant. The provocative second section features essays on the intersection between crime and culture, such as Alex Mar’s incisive examination of two girls seemingly compelled to attempt murder by the internet meme of the “Slender Man.” Over the course of the essay, Mar establishes parallels to the girls who incited the Salem witch trials and another pair of girls in 1950s Australia. The third section widens out to include stories that wouldn't necessarily seem to fit the true-crime formula. These include Jason Fagone's graphic “What Bullets Do to Bodies,” in which he chronicles his experiences with the chief trauma surgeon at a Philadelphia hospital, and Melissa Del Bosque's insightful “Checkpoint Nation,” which explores the question of whether the Border Patrol often oversteps its authority. Other contributors include Michelle Dean, Alice Bolin, and Emma Copley Eisenberg.

A well-chosen sampling of writings from a rapidly expanding and developing field.

Kirkus Reviews