A review by nerfherder86
The Borden Murders: Lizzie Borden & the Trial of the Century by Sarah Miller

4.0

An excellent nonfiction book on the notorious crime of the 19th century, this meticulously researched book gives as balanced an account as is probably possible, letting the reader judge for themselves if Lizzie Borden was guilty or not guilty of killing her father and stepmother. The book is divided into sections, narrating the discovery of the bodies and what happened immediately afterward; subsequent sections describe the arraignment, pretrial hearing, and trial itself. The book includes many photographs, including the victims' bashed-in skulls (but none of the murder victims up close; the text describes the wounds in quite enough detail for your imagination to fill in the rest, thank you very much) and the floor plan of the house, to enable the reader to properly follow along and set the scene just like in any good murder mystery. Every bit of dialogue in the book is real, documented in the endnotes as having been said in various witness testimonies, so the book reads like a novel but is not fictionalized. I am amazed at how much material is out there on this case (including two different modern quarterly journals! There are "Lizzie Borden Societies" apparently! Good grief!), and the author gives a terrific end note describing how she wrote the book, trying to give a full accounting of both defense and prosecution, and discarding the newspaper stories that we know to be completely fabricated. She gives a pretty full description of what Lizzie may have been like, as a person, without sensationalizing anything. What I enjoyed most were the fascinating sidebars explaining all kinds of 19th century social and cultural details, from the kinds of fabric used in ladies' dresses of the time (I'd never heard of "Bedford cord" or "Bengali silk", but it was important in determining what Lizzie wore during or after the crime) to mourning practices, to the kinds of medicines available at drugstores back then, and so forth. And the author also gave enlightening information on 19th century journalism in general and the local newspapers of the time specifically. I was shocked to learn that a reporter was able to slip inside the house alongside the police right as they began their investigation! The incompetence and sloppiness of the police was a really interesting aspect to this case. Highly recommend this book to anyone who likes murder mysteries, police procedurals, learning more about America at the end of the 19th century, women's history, and so on.