Last week I mentioned an interview Sarah Weinman did with author Emma Flint. Then I proceeded to go and order a copy of Emma Flint's book, which I am now eagerly awaiting. Part of the fun, of course, is the anticipation of reading something you are really looking forward to. And in the interim as I watch my mailbox, I was thinking of other books which would fit that mold--novels written from the inspiration of true events. Fictionalized true crime stories I guess you might call them. And here are thirteen of them which I have come up with!
Little Deaths by Emma Flint -- "It's 1965 in a tight-knit working-class neighborhood in Queens, New York, and Ruth Malone--a single mother who works long hours as a cocktail waitress--wakes to discover her two small children, Frankie Jr. and Cindy, have gone missing. Later that day, Cindy's body is found in a derelict lot a half mile from her home, strangled. Ten days later, Frankie Jr.'s decomposing body is found. Immediately, all fingers point to Ruth."
The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy -- "On January 15, 1947, the torture-ravished body of a beautiful young woman is found in a Los Angeles vacant lot. The victim makes headlines as the Black Dahlia-and so begins the greatest manhunt in California history.Caught up in the investigation are Bucky Bleichert and Lee Blanchard: Warrants Squad cops, friends, and rivals in love with the same woman. But both are obsessed with the Dahlia-driven by dark needs to know everything about her past, to capture her killer, to possess the woman even in death."
The Girls by Emma Cline -- "Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their freedom, their careless dress, their dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, Evie is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader. Hidden in the hills, their sprawling ranch is eerie and run down, but to Evie, it is exotic, thrilling, charged—a place where she feels desperate to be accepted. As she spends more time away from her mother and the rhythms of her daily life, and as her obsession with Suzanne intensifies, Evie does not realize she is coming closer and closer to unthinkable violence."
Fred & Edie by Jill Dawson -- "In a dazzling act of literary license, the novelist and poet Jill Dawson has transformed the sensational true story of Britains infamous condemned adulteress into a dramatic novel of passion, murder, and scandal, as seductive as it is shocking."
A Pin to See the Peepshow by F. Tennyson Jesse -- This "1934 novel A Pin to See the Peepshow is a thinly fictionalised account of the life of another magnetic woman, Edith Thompson, one of the three main players in the 'Ilford murder' case of 1922." (The Dawson book above is also based on this same crime).
The Law and the Lady by Wilkie Collins -- "The Madeleine Smith case was an inspiration for Wilkie Collins' novel The Law and the Lady (1875), though the only main similar features were the problem of the Scottish "Not Proven" verdict and arsenic poisoning as a means for murder."
Outside Valentine by Liza Ward -- "Liza Ward's spellbinding first novel is told from the very different points of view of three narrators mysteriously linked by a shocking crime and their efforts to heal the past. Based on the Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate murders in Nebraska in the 1950s, Outside Valentine examines the effects of violence and the power of love as the three voices interweave and show the lingering and devastating aftershocks of murder across three generations."
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent -- "Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution."
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser -- "Theodore Dreiser set out to create an epic character and, in the form of Clyde Griffiths in An American Tragedy, he succeeded. Griffiths is just a Midwest kid, the son of a preacher in Kansas City, who tastes a little sophistication and then hits the road seeking pleasure and success. He has his moments, conducting more than one romantic affair, until that ill-advised pursuit ensnares him. Then he reads about an "accident" of a young woman and ponders a dastardly deed ... Dreiser spins these scenes with the eye of a master in control of his form."
A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly -- "Sixteen-year-old Mattie Gokey has big dreams but little hope of seeing them come true. Desperate for money, she takes a job at the Glenmore, where hotel guest Grace Brown entrusts her with the task of burning a secret bundle of letters. But when Grace's drowned body is fished from the lake, Mattie discovers that the letters could reveal the grim truth behind a murder. Set in 1906 against the backdrop of the murder that inspired Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy, Jennifer Donnelly's astonishing debut novel effortlessly weaves romance, history, and a murder mystery into something moving, and real, and wholly original."
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood -- "It’s 1843, and Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer and his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence, Grace claims to have no memory of the murders."
Room by Emma Donoghue -- "To five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world. . . . It's where he was born, it's where he and his Ma eat and sleep and play and learn. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits."
The Weight of Water by Anita Shreve -- "A newspaper photographer, Jean, researches the lurid and sensational ax murder of two women in 1873 as an editorial tie-in with a brutal modern double murder. (Can you guess which one?) She discovers a cache of papers that appear to give an account of the murders by an eyewitness. The plot weaves between the narrative of the eyewitness and Jean's private struggle with jealousies and suspicions as her marriage teeters."
I have most of these on my shelves, have read a smattering of them (or seen film adaptations). I find fictionalized true crime stories sort of mesmerizing though they can be truly chilling, too, and can't read too many close together. I am sure there are loads more I haven't yet come across or thought of. If you have any other recommendations, do share. I think my next one will certainly be Emma Flint's novel!