Cara Robertson

Cara Robertson's The Trial of Lizzie Borden is a meticulous and scrupulously impartial look at the infamous axe murders and the subsequent trial of Lizzie Borden for the killing of her father and stepmother. This is not the book to go into if you want a trashy true crime read—Robertson eschews sensationalism in favour of setting out the facts so that the reader can decide, and showing how contemporary social mores about gender, class and race probably led to Borden's acquittal. Robertson show more does a great job in particular of showing how Gilded Age journalists were no more impartial than their modern descendants.

(There's no way now conclusively prove whodunnit beyond a reasonable doubt, but based on what facts there are and the balance of probability? Lizzie did it.) show less

"We are trying a crime that would have been deemed impossible but for the fact that it was"

This was actually very good, very interesting. This is a case that feels like there isn't more information we can ever get, a case we will never fully solve. But this book felt like there was new information. I think the most surprising to me was what felt like the support Lizzie Borden received from other women in the neighborhood. The new reports often made it sound like women were all aflutter to be show more a part of the drama, but many witnesses observed certain nods and movements that made it seem like they knew something more and were helping Lizzie keep a secret - one like abuse of some sort in the house or some other dark secret. I like the storytelling style, full of facts but also observations and notes from people who were there, not just news papers. I'm so glad I gave this one a try - I found it fascinating and very engaging. show less

I was startled when, as an adult, I learned that the old rhyme about Lizzie Borden killing her mother and father with an axe was based on a real event. There never were 40 "whacks" to the mother, let alone 41 to the father but there were real deaths from real axe blows. From time to time I would watch something come on television that might shed some illumination on the mystery but, until this book, I never read anything in depth about the case.

Robertson takes a topic which begs to be show more sensational and deftly avoids that pitfall. Nor does she fall the other way into a dry-roast retelling of the basic story. Rather, she pokes and prods to a reasonable degree to learn about the environment of the murders leaving it up to the reader to decide what to believe and what to discard from the available evidence. She even identifies some areas of evidentiary opportunity deftly avoided by the men in the case, investigators, prosecutors, defense team all. The murders happened during Lizzie's "time of the month" and none of the men wanted to get within an arm's length of any exploration of potential evidence or explanation related to the motives of the crime related to her "monthly illness". One piece of evidence required they acknowledge it, but Robertson identifies potential claims that either prosecution or defense might have used to bolster their respective cases but the men avoided even considering to consider them. In my opinion, maybe that was to Lizzie's benefit.

This book will not give you an answer of whether Lizzie was guilty; it's point is to explore the trial and illuminate the arguments around the various legal issues. At no point do you see what, if any, perspective on that question Robertson holds. I did get a chuckle out of the jury deliberations. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. show less

Guilty.

Robertson focuses on how the idea of a young gentlewoman committing a violent murder was recieved in 19th-c America, and how that influenced popular opinion and the outcome of the trial. If some of the trial narrative drags, imagine what it must've been like to actually have to sit in that courtroom. Robertson has done us all the favor of sorting through what must've been thousands of pages of trial transcripts and newspaper articles to distill an engaging narrative that contrasts show more the ideal of genteel womanhood with the reality of a "nice" woman who may well have (and I think did) murder her family. show less