The Red Parts

Autobiography of a Trial

By: Maggie Nelson

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell

Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

A chilling genre-busting memoir by a major American essayist

Late in 2004, Maggie Nelson was looking forward to the publication of her book, Jane: A Murder, a narrative in verse about the life and death of her aunt, who had been murdered 35 years before. The case remained unsolved, but Jane was assumed to have been the victim of an infamous serial killer in Michigan in 1969.

Then, one November afternoon, Nelson received a call from her mother, who announced that the case had been reopened; a new suspect would be arrested and tried on the basis of a DNA match. Over the months that followed, Nelson found herself attending the trial with her mother and reflecting anew on the aura of dread and fear that hung over her family and childhood - an aura that derived not only from the terrible facts of her aunt's murder but also from her own complicated journey through sisterhood, daughterhood, and girlhood.

The Red Parts is a memoir, an account of a trial, and a provocative essay that interrogates the American obsession with violence and missing white women and that scrupulously explores the nature of grief, justice, and empathy.

©2007 Maggie Nelson. Preface to the paperback edition © 2016 by Maggie Nelson (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Compelling, but missing something deeper

Any additional comments?

3.5 stars. I finished this book and am conflicted in how I feel about it. The writing itself is evocative and interesting, but sometimes feels overwrought. The subject matter (a sort of wandering exploration of how a murder impacts a family, the course of a trial, how certain events intersected with the author's life at the time) is obviously serious and compelling. Nelson's maternal aunt was murdered in the late 1960s (before Nelson was born), and her murder was thought to be committed by a serial killer. However, around 2004, a DNA match was found and a different person implicated. Nelson had finished a book of poetry that integrated her late aunt's own journal entries and Nelson's own impressions of her aunt and was closing in on her publication date when news of the reinvigorated investigation reached her. This book is largely Nelson's musings on her own life during this time period, memoir of some of her life growing up, and her impressions during and after the trial. I kept listening, and it was gripping, but at times I felt like a voyeur, at others Nelson's own recounting felt gratuitous (leaving the reader with the impression that she was focused on shocking or being particularly incisive, and not merely being honest). There are interesting insights throughout and some important points made (including our national appetite for shows depicting heinous crimes, and the disproportionate value we place on pretty, white deaths as opposed to the deaths of brown people), but these are in passing and only briefly discussed, leaving the reader to finish the book feeling like something was missing and an opportunity for a deeper book was left unrealized.

total disappointment: glimpses of the crime amidst social-justice-laden self-contradiction

Ugh. Spare me the constant virtue-signaling. I tried to like this, but it's so pompously self-centered.

Captivating

This novel was so much more than the title page can describe! Listen to it free!

My new favourite author

I can't believe this book was free. Maggie Nelson is amazing... Narration was outstanding... I've found my new favourite author, and these are so rare to find nowadays!

Not what I expected

This book showed up as a recommendation as I have been listening to serial killer stories recently. I was bored listening to the first few chapters, waiting for the “meat” of the story. Honestly, I think the author is somewhat narcissistic, talking about herself and her personal issues way too much. It was really unnecessary for the purposes of this book- just my opinion.

Brilliant and unflinching view of her family scarred by murder before the author’s birth

The discussion of a murder trial presents structure to the examination of this murder, but is just a small part of the author’s discussion of her experience of growing up in a family with her mother’s sister having being murdered before the author was alive.
Her observations about her own inner life as well as the actions of her parents, sister, grandfather, friends, and the detectives and media workers provide a deep and moving portrait of interconnected lives and the long arm of traumatic loss.
The reading was unemotional, textbook-level information delivery, though changing voices for the male detectives in a way that was a bit jarring and seemed mocking.
The uniform delivery of every phrase provides an almost monochrome canvas of the information, which is respectful, but makes this work sound as if it is authored by someone who is providing mere facts, recording the events. There must be a way to read this book without melodrama and without infusing opinions but also without this numbing uniformity.
The humanity, insight, and bravery of this author in recounting her experience and observations of her family’s lives and the people who surround them, describing searching for meaning beyond mere tragedy in her aunt’s life decades ago is a welcome change in the genre of true-crime, and a tour de force of artistic bravery. Beautiful Book.

Less about the trial or the victim than the author

This book was painfully narcissistic. I wish the author was less self-absorbed . Her goal seems to have been to be deep instead of conveying depth organically

What a great read

I haven’t read a page turner like that in many covid months! Sad when it was finished.

Disappointed

Kept waiting for something to happen, never did, couldn't finish although I gave it hours.

Ruined by the reader.

Maggie Nelson has a vibrant mind and is a good writer. Unfortunately the reader of this book is all smugness and distorts the voice which is everything in a work like this. Read the Argonauts. Or listen to Nelson read it herself. Not smug. Not arch. A great book, The Argonauts.