Marcia M. Gallo

This is an interesting read, though not as compelling as I'd expected.

Gallo takes Kitty Genovese's murder and, rather than putting it under a microscope as with a typical true crime book, instead takes a much broader look. This story does not focus on Genovese, but more uses her as a central point in which various threads connect. For the most part, this approach works well. I would have liked more information on Kitty Genovese, so I could know her as a person. The details here are scant, which I find particularly odd since one of Gallo's complaints throughout this book is that Genovese was overlooked, with all the focus being on the 37 silent witnesses. Here Genovese is not as much overlooked as she is overshadowed.

The writing is good, straightforward, and easy to follow. The content and, perhaps, lack of writing is where I stumbled. First, much of this story is told through various quotes taken from numerous sources. Gallo's voice is often lost or altogether absent within other people's words. The result feels more like a compilation of facts, rather than a cohesive book.

I also feel like Gallo occasionally lost her way, providing far too much content on unrelated issues. For instance, we learn more than I'll ever need (or want) to know about Abe Rosenthal, who at the time worked for the New York Times newspaper. While his stories certainly were a heavy influence on the type of coverage Genovese's murder received, at times I felt I was reading a biography of the man's life. We're given excessive detail on matters in his past that could have been handled with a few paragraphs. This often myopic view of Rosenthal also has the misfortune of portraying him as the central figure, a man able to twist stories to his liking, while ignoring the complicity of all those around him.

For me, this book's strength is in the attention it brings to the power and bias of media. This has not changed since Genovese's murder. If anything, the problem has grown worse. Stories the media chooses to cover, how those stories are portrayed, and what the media chooses to ignore all shape our view of the world. The media is dominated by a select few. They decide what is newsworthy. They take their own biases into each story, and their coverage is, intentionally or not, a reflection of those biases. The majority of people only have one or two main sources for their news, and so what they learn is based upon what someone else wants them to know.

This book encompasses a vast amount of sociological information surrounding the Genovese's murder, and for me the appeal came in those surrounding details. If your interest is mainly the story of Kitty Genovese's murder, this book probably won't hold the same appeal for you.

*I was provided with a free ebook copy by the publisher, via Netgalley, in exchange for my honest review.*… (more)