You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
milflover5000 's review for:
I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer
by Michelle McNamara
The serial killer is the least interesting part of this book. This is the story of a beloved woman who tragically died before completing her manuscript and the efforts of those around her to continue her work and her memory.
The central conceit of the book is unfinished and not particularly compelling. It provides little insight into the complexities of the horrific crimes it covers, but plenty into the authors inner world. McNamara's writing is honest and self-reflexive. What is truly compelling is the meta-narrative this creates. The book feels deeply intimate and at times almost prying into the author's creative process. Michelle's voice comes through in a staccato - her solid narrative threads separated by empty words where her loved ones tried to posthumously sew them together.
There is a tragic dramatic irony to the whole novel, knowing we are reading a book where the author died before its completion and which was published only two months before the murderer was identified. An unintentional exercise in absurdist meaning-making in the face the of death.
The central conceit of the book is unfinished and not particularly compelling. It provides little insight into the complexities of the horrific crimes it covers, but plenty into the authors inner world. McNamara's writing is honest and self-reflexive. What is truly compelling is the meta-narrative this creates. The book feels deeply intimate and at times almost prying into the author's creative process. Michelle's voice comes through in a staccato - her solid narrative threads separated by empty words where her loved ones tried to posthumously sew them together.
There is a tragic dramatic irony to the whole novel, knowing we are reading a book where the author died before its completion and which was published only two months before the murderer was identified. An unintentional exercise in absurdist meaning-making in the face the of death.