True Crime
![Maggie Nelson - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_maggie_nelson.jpg)
The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial
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 thirty-five 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.
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.
Editorial Reviews
Available for the first time in paperback
"Alternating between a narrative of the trial and a rambling exploration of her own life, Nelson examines the many stereotypes and clichés of murder, making it seem that no subject could possibly be more embedded in the American consciousness. . . . Nelson is refreshingly self-critical―of herself and her writing project."―The New York Times Book Review
"It's Nelson's articulation of her many selves―the poet who writes prose; the memoirist who considers the truth specious; the essayist whose books amount to a kind of fairy tale, in which the protagonist goes from darkness to light, and then falls in love with a singular knight―that makes her readers feel hopeful."―Hilton Als, The New Yorker
"Her quivering, precise ethical sensitivity is everywhere at work, worrying, probing, discerning. . . . Nelson's resistance to the easy answer, her willingness to reach a kind of conclusion and then to break it, to probe further and further, to ask about her own complex and not entirely noble intentions instead of facilely condemning others, make The Red Parts an uneasy masterpiece."―NPR.org
"The Red Parts is meandering and diaristic, plunging us into a story as it happens. We sit beside Nelson and share her bewilderment, and by the end of the book we are forced to recognize that this is one of the greatest gifts an author can provide us: the chance to admit that we do not know what we think."―Elle.com
"Graywolf Press has done a great service to readers by re-publishing The Red Parts in 2016. . . . In a cultural moment in which true crime narrative―Serial, Making a Murderer, The Jynx, etc.―has reached an especially hypnotizing level, Nelson's book powerfully reminds us of the wrecked lives that violence leaves in its wake." ―Electric Literature
"Every bit as gripping as a true-crime book, but infinitely more complex and rewarding."―Vulture
"[Maggie Nelson's The Red Parts is] an enthralling personal s...
"Alternating between a narrative of the trial and a rambling exploration of her own life, Nelson examines the many stereotypes and clichés of murder, making it seem that no subject could possibly be more embedded in the American consciousness. . . . Nelson is refreshingly self-critical―of herself and her writing project."―The New York Times Book Review
"It's Nelson's articulation of her many selves―the poet who writes prose; the memoirist who considers the truth specious; the essayist whose books amount to a kind of fairy tale, in which the protagonist goes from darkness to light, and then falls in love with a singular knight―that makes her readers feel hopeful."―Hilton Als, The New Yorker
"Her quivering, precise ethical sensitivity is everywhere at work, worrying, probing, discerning. . . . Nelson's resistance to the easy answer, her willingness to reach a kind of conclusion and then to break it, to probe further and further, to ask about her own complex and not entirely noble intentions instead of facilely condemning others, make The Red Parts an uneasy masterpiece."―NPR.org
"The Red Parts is meandering and diaristic, plunging us into a story as it happens. We sit beside Nelson and share her bewilderment, and by the end of the book we are forced to recognize that this is one of the greatest gifts an author can provide us: the chance to admit that we do not know what we think."―Elle.com
"Graywolf Press has done a great service to readers by re-publishing The Red Parts in 2016. . . . In a cultural moment in which true crime narrative―Serial, Making a Murderer, The Jynx, etc.―has reached an especially hypnotizing level, Nelson's book powerfully reminds us of the wrecked lives that violence leaves in its wake." ―Electric Literature
"Every bit as gripping as a true-crime book, but infinitely more complex and rewarding."―Vulture
"[Maggie Nelson's The Red Parts is] an enthralling personal s...
Readers Top Reviews
ARGfragrensIzzielick
I think part of my problem with this book is that the blurb lead me to believe it was something else than what it intends to be, but part is the book itself. I first heard of this book in a review of Michigan Murders or Terror in Ypsilanti. That reviewer suggested it was another angle on the same events (at least one of them), but in the same true crime non fiction way. The blurb backs this up. It is the story of the trial decades later by the niece that never knew Jane Mixer, the not John Norman Collins victim killed amidst the series that long ago summer. Instead, this is some weird personal journey intermixed sometimes with the trial. There are literary quotes mixed in and they just seem to say look I'm literate despite being royally screwed up in the head. There is not meat to this story. I don't really know anything I didn't about the trial or the feelings of the Mixer family. So many unanswered questions. But, I don't think they were meant to be answered so I don't give this book a one. But even still it was a hodge podge of bad decisions, strange visions, personal loss and sometimes the trial.
D. Spark
Hard to read for various reasons, but very interesting. Not quite the brilliant work that Nelson's The Argonaut's is, but compelling all the same. Nelson has an interesting (and also disturbing, given her S-M compulsions next to the creepy sex-related crimes in her family) set of concerns (intellectual and emotional) that make this book one that I whipped through even as it upset me. (Not just for what it was disclosing, but because how hard it is to hold different aspects of the narrative in one's mind at the same time.)
Mia TC
An engrossing, personalized approach to the true crime genre. The author's tireless and emotional search into the cold case murder of her aunt parallels a real police investigation, and the two stories cross over in a very interesting way (without giving away any plot here). I read this after reading her book "Jane", which predates this book, and I enjoyed first being introduced to Jane (the victim) through excerpts from her journals and the author's knowledge of her as a family member. Ms. Nelson also has such a disarming voice in how she relates facts and curiosity, that it's like reading the best of a memoir and investigative reporting.
Butch
This is not a true crime book in the general sense. It's a memoir of a woman dealing with the family trauma of a murder trial. The murder itself is far removed in time, the author never met the victim, who would have been her aunt. Still, it's gripping stuff. Incredibly well-written, moving, terrifying, lyrical. I'm glad I read it, and am not sure that any other book will be as satisfying for a while after this.
Melina Graves
The Red Parts is, on top of everything, a very original book. Built on a family tragedy (the killing of the aunt of the author, before she was even born), the book has the backdrop of an improbable (but true) trial, trying to find the killer of Jane 36 years after the murder. With that, Maggie Nelson reflects on the long lasting impact some events have on a personal and family level, the transgenerational trauma and her own traumas derived from the hazards and challenges of her nuclear family life. The story is compelling, very well written, with a focus on the omnipresence of death and of view: she even describes photographs from the autopsy and the finding of the body, but refrains to show them in the book. As a reader, I was moved by Maggie Nelson’s profound sensitivity and her “defense” strategy: she shows feeling, but (to paraphrase Vivian Gornick), we know her through a transparent membrane: we can see, but we can’t touch. It seems as if even the deepest insight on one’s past and present is always elusive.
