The Angel Makers

Arsenic, a Midwife, and Modern History’s Most Astonishing Murder Ring

By: Patti McCracken

Narrated by: Gabra Zackman

The Angel Makers has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

Needless extraneous details…

Needless extraneous details fill in for lack of real substantive historical information. I would have preferred less ‘color’ and more substance, but it was still a decent read about real events.

An Engaging and Encompassing Read

Patti McCracken weaves together a true crime tale with all the fleshed out details of literary fiction. Similar to other recent non-fiction authors like Erik Larson, McCracken uses a mix of research and direct quotes with her own extrapolations to keep the work fairly fast paced and engaging. The connections and wide scope of the work bring to life how much this shocking story was not as singular or remote as it may appear. McCracken’s descriptions are fleshed out and do not leave much to the imagination, yet it still gives room for the listener to formulate their own questions and perspectives on the actions of the women of Nagyrév.
I found in general the descriptions to be the strongest point of the book. The more we can relate to historical events and people as humans, the better we can learn and consider our own perspectives. On this point, I sometimes felt there was a dearth of description or footnotes on aspects of Romani and Hungarian culture or history that could help fill in my dearth of knowledge. If I had a physical copy of the book, perhaps this would be less of a problem. I felt that in the notes and afterward McCracken brought more foreword, and I personally wouldn’t have minded more embedded in the main text.
The narrator, Gabra Zackman, also helps bring this story to life. Her clear and distinct voices between characters helped to keep track of them easily in a drama that ends up swallowing the town whole and its women with it. Even at 1.25x speed, Zackman’s performance never felt choppy or robotic. Occasionally the crier’s voice seemed a little over the top, but perhaps that is why they’re the crier! The only lull for me was towards the last few chapters of the book, wherein I felt that I knew what would happen and therefore felt no need to listen intently and in fact set it aside for nearly a few weeks even though I only had about twenty minutes to go!
I heartily recommend this book to anyone that has wanted to dip their toe into non-fiction, but the prospect of a dry textbook scared them off or to the true crime reader in need of a new history to tell their friends about.

Read like Historical Fiction

An interesting affair bogged down by writing that felt waaay more like historical fiction... A tale of an evil (and fat, least we forget) midwife that led a group of desperate and/or greedy women to poison unwanted, and sometimes awful, men and babies/pregnancies.

possibility of a good story lost

the story by itself is really interesting, but the way it was represented as a literary work was too boring, too many unnecessary paragraphs detailing rooms, smells, etc. Really wanted to hear more of actual testimonies, written articles at that time, and in general, more analysis of how these kind of events happened

Interesting Story, Questionable Execution

The story of the angel makers of Nagyrév is an interesting one. This particular telling of it doesn't really do it justice. The author focuses on a lot of extraneous details -- the murderous midwife is constantly described by her weight, to the point where it becomes a bit farcical. Not quite sure if the author was deliberately trying to draw a line between fat = bad, or if she was just so in love with the concept of the village midwife being this venal, fat, bloated tick of a woman feeding off the community she was supposed to serve that she was unable to move beyond the metaphor. The depiction is almost cartoonish -- the evil witch in a fairy tale.

This particular telling focuses on Aunty Suzy and her inner circle -- mostly family members -- and their unique take on problem solving. Their motivation is primarily greed.

I think that it would have been interesting to learn more about the women who were motivated by desperation. McCracken references two women in particular who rid themselves of abusive family members, but they seem like narrative outliers to be pitied rather than women with stories of their own.