Ivy, is very much a woman of her time, and as culture is currently obsessed with rewriting every historical woman as a "badass," there is something refreshing in finding a woman who operates to actively find the answers she needs within her times restrictions rather than creating a fabulist narrative of the ease of societal change.
Mark pays a heavy price for his cowardice, his inability to face up to reality and do the mature, adult thing in a difficult and tense situation. I feel that Mark might be paying this price for the rest of his life, but Meredith pays a heavier price for her involvement with Mark.
If you are looking for the next great literary piece of true crime in the tradition of Capote, then this will not be the book for you, and that is exactly as it should be. True Crime while often tending towards the most shocking, spooky or gruesome does reflect life, thankfully an extreme of life many of us won't experience, but life none-the-less. Burke, who comes across as a down to earth man of the people makes this memoire all the stronger by retaining his authentic voice, which is the books ultimate strength, rather than trying for literary kudos.
Moore, with her highly unique experience is slowly building a podcast which is valuble in the true crime field, it deepens our understanding of the innocents effected by brutal crimes, the ones that all our storytelling forms, news, films, books have neglected. For those who truly seek to understand the most devient crimes, understanding not just what led up to them, but also there half life is equally important, and Moore does so well in giving a voice, to those who had previously been voiceless.
What Russo firmly does is place the outcomes of the cult, within a cultural context of the crumbling American empire, and the death of the public service ideal. By doing this he makes the scared, isolated lives the cult members live much more a symptom of the modern worlds lack of connection, community and shared values, rather than the punchline of a joke.
The fact that behind the fandom, obsessiveness and excitement that true crime can illicit in it's follower there is terrible pain. Not a pain that is showey and ostentacious, but the pain so many people carry with them every day, which becomes a constant companion and eventually is just part of you. It is a reminder of how things happen to people, and the choices that impact us the most are often the ones other people make, sometimes far, far away. Their ripples are sent out throughout the world, but always hit the heart.
Yet, when we look at the evidence over time it's likely that women have been just, if not more prolific in their voilence. A combination of using methods which have been more difficult to detect and less showy, such as posoin, combined with cultural taboo's that still exist around women, caring and motherhood which mean their violence can often not be contemplated, very weirdly leads me to conclude this is yet another area in which women's contributions have been overlooked. And as pshycologist Anna Motz says, when we deny women's violence, we deny women.
The road to hell is paved with good intention, and ego's that need the propping up of "doing good."
While I try to avoid spoilers in my reviews, with this one it has not been possible, mainly because the pod progresses in a way I want to discuss, and talk about - which is a testament to how powerful a piece of investigative journalisim it is. If you do not want spoilers then please …
You can buy the book in the True Crime Fiction bookshop here. Killing for Company, by Brian Masters is a slightly different offering in the True Crime genre, but definitely one I would suggest could become part of the cannon. I picked it up after watching the ITV drama Des, which features David Tennant, eerily …
Continue reading True Crime Audiobook Review: Killing for Company
