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Savage appetites : four true stories of women, crime, and obsession / Rachel Monroe.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York, NY : Scribner, 2019Copyright date: ©2019Edition: First Scribner hardcover editionDescription: ix, 257 pages : illustrations ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
  • still image
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781501188886
  • 1501188887
Other title:
  • Four true stories of women, crime, and obsession
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
All crime all the time -- The detective -- The victim -- The defender -- The killer -- Scary stories to tell in the dark
Summary: In this illuminating exploration of women, violence, and obsession, Rachel Monroe interrogates the appeal of true crime through four narratives of fixation. In the 1940s, a bored heiress began creating dollhouse crime scenes depicting murders, suicides, and accidental deaths. Known as the "Mother of Forensic Science," she revolutionized the field of what was then called legal medicine. In the aftermath of the Manson Family murders, a young woman moved into Sharon Tate's guesthouse and, over the next two decades, entwined herself with the Tate family. In the mid-nineties, a landscape architect in Brooklyn fell in love with a convicted murderer, the supposed ringleader of the West Memphis Three, through an intense series of letters. After they married, she devoted her life to getting him freed from death row. And in 2015, a teenager deeply involved in the online fandom for the Columbine killers planned a mass shooting of her own. A combination of personal narrative, reportage, and a sociological examination of violence and media in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Savage appetites is a journey into obsession, scrupulously exploring empathy, justice and the persistent appeal of crime.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 364.1523 M753 Available 33111009696234
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A provocative and original investigation of our cultural fascination with crime, linking four archetypes--Detective, Victim, Defender, Killer--to four true stories about women driven by obsession.

In this illuminating exploration of women, violence, and obsession, Rachel Monroe interrogates the appeal of true crime through four narratives of fixation. In the 1940s, a frustrated heiress began creating dollhouse crime scenes depicting murders, suicides, and accidental deaths. Known as the "Mother of Forensic Science," she revolutionized the field of what was then called legal medicine. In the aftermath of the Manson Family murders, a young woman moved into Sharon Tate's guesthouse and, over the next two decades, entwined herself with the Tate family. In the mid-nineties, a landscape architect in Brooklyn fell in love with a convicted murderer, the supposed ringleader of the West Memphis Three, through an intense series of letters. After they married, she devoted her life to getting him freed from death row. And in 2015, a teenager deeply involved in the online fandom for the Columbine killers planned a mass shooting of her own.

Each woman, Monroe argues, represents and identifies with a particular archetype that provides an entryway into true crime. Through these four cases, she traces the history of American crime through the growth of forensic science, the evolving role of victims, the Satanic Panic, the rise of online detectives, and the long shadow of the Columbine shooting. In a combination of personal narrative, reportage, and a sociological examination of violence and media in the twentieth and twenty-first century, Savage Appetites scrupulously explores empathy, justice, and the persistent appeal of violence.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 255-257).

In this illuminating exploration of women, violence, and obsession, Rachel Monroe interrogates the appeal of true crime through four narratives of fixation. In the 1940s, a bored heiress began creating dollhouse crime scenes depicting murders, suicides, and accidental deaths. Known as the "Mother of Forensic Science," she revolutionized the field of what was then called legal medicine. In the aftermath of the Manson Family murders, a young woman moved into Sharon Tate's guesthouse and, over the next two decades, entwined herself with the Tate family. In the mid-nineties, a landscape architect in Brooklyn fell in love with a convicted murderer, the supposed ringleader of the West Memphis Three, through an intense series of letters. After they married, she devoted her life to getting him freed from death row. And in 2015, a teenager deeply involved in the online fandom for the Columbine killers planned a mass shooting of her own. A combination of personal narrative, reportage, and a sociological examination of violence and media in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Savage appetites is a journey into obsession, scrupulously exploring empathy, justice and the persistent appeal of crime.

All crime all the time -- The detective -- The victim -- The defender -- The killer -- Scary stories to tell in the dark

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