Evan Hunter was born in New York City in 1926. He is widely recognized as one of America’s most popular novelists, as well as a successful writer for television and cinema whose credits include the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. His novels as Evan Hunter include The Blackboard Jungle, A Matter of Conviction, and Buddwing. His writings include novels, short stories, screenplays, teleplays, and children's books.

Under the pseudonym of Ed McBain his books have sold over one hundred million copies and include both the 87th Precinct and the Matthew Hope series. McBain holds the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award and is one of the true greats of crime writing.

McBain is the only non-British author to be awarded the Crime Writers Association's Diamond Dagger Award — the ultimate award for a crime writer. Says the Tangled Web UK, "His 87th precinct series, featuring Detective Steve Carella and his colleagues has set and maintained the standard for crime fiction through more than 50 novels of extraordinary quality."

Visit Evan Hunter's web site by clicking here.

 

From Lizzie by Evan Hunter.
Afterword: Connecticut — 1983

Although this is a work of fiction, much of it is rooted firmly in fact.

The inquest material is factual. It has been curtailed only when Knowlton's questions and Lizzie's responses became overly repetitious. But the words recorded are Lizzie's and Knowlton's own, exactly as they were spoken.

The trial material is also factual, but the full transcript ran to 1930 typewritten pages, and it was obviously necessary to abbreviate. I've deleted the opposing attorney's lengthy opening statements and closing arguments. I've also deleted any testimony that merely corroborated or repeated what other witnesses had already sworn to or that did not bear conclusively on Lizzie's guilt or innocence. In addition, I've severely curtailed Justice Dewey's charge to the jury, without diluting its obvious intent.

In condensing further I abandoned customary American trial procedure in favor of a more novelistic approach. In reality the prosecution presents its case first. There is a direct examination of each witness, followed by the defense's cross-examination. the prosecution is then allowed a redirect, and the defense a recross. After the prosecution has rested its case, the defense then calls its witnesses, and the same rules of questioning and requestioning apply. In taking dramatic license with this fixed procedure, I have often gone directly to the heart of the testimony without identifying a question as being put by either prosecution or defense. Needless to say, whenever anyone's testimony reads as a continuous narrative, it does so because I have eliminated the questions entirely and shaped the answers into what appears to be an uninterrupted flow. Most importantly I have often changed the order in which the witnesses actually appeared, sometimes presenting their testimony as an unbroken chain of events arranged in minute-by-minute chronological sequence, and at other times clustering their testimony around the nucleus of a disputed point, so as to achieve greater clarity and understanding on that point. In no instance have I knowingly distorted the meaning of what was said. The words are those of the lawyers, judges, and witnesses themselves.

Lizzie's European trip is premised solely on the various mentions of it made during the inquest and the trial; I searched in vain for further information about it. The reconstructed trip, then, is entirely fictitious, its details culled from newspaper articles, magazine pieces, pamphlets and travel books of the period. I shall be forever grateful to a Mrs. Juliette Adam, who —in writing to the North American Review in 1890—provided the inspiration for the American-Girl-as-Orchid metaphor. I should say a word or two about the quatre à cinq. I am fully aware that it is currently called cinq à sept, but the expression I've used is accurate for the times. In France the cinq à sept is still known as l'heure de femme—the hour of the woman.

While not entirely unsupported conjecture, Lizzie Borden's lesbianism should also be taken as part of the fiction.

Shortly after the trial Lizzie adopted the name Lizbeth and moved into a new and luxurious home. In 1897 a warrant for her arrest was issued, charging that she had stolen two inexpensive paintings on marble from the Tilden-Thurber Company in Providence. The warrant was never served. 1 According to one source, the paintings were called Love's Dream and Love's Awakening. 2

At the turn of the century, a man divorcing his wife on charges of lesbianism named Lizbeth A Borden of Fall River as corespondent. Judge William Trowbridge Forbes of the Probate Court in Worcester County dismissed the charges as frivolous. 3 Emma lived with her sister in the new house on French Street until 1905, when—after an argument following the midnight entertainment of Lizzie's close friend, the actress Nance O'Neil—she packed her bags and left the house, 4 never to return, never to see Lizzie again. In a later interview, Emma said, "The happenings at the French Street house that caused me to leave, I must refuse to talk about. I did not go until conditions became absolutely unbearable. Then, before taking action, I consulted the Rev. A. E. Buck. After carefully listening to my story, he said it was imperative that I should make my home elsewhere. I do not expect ever to set foot on the place while she lives." 5

A poem carved into the wood above the fireplace in Lizzie's new bedroom read:

Carved into the mahogany mantel of the library fireplace were the words "At Hame in My Ain Countrie," taken from a poem by the Scottish poet Allan Cunningham. When Lizzie died in 1927, at the age of sixty-eight, the soloist at her funeral sang a song composed to those words.

Clause 28 of Lizzie's will read: "I have not given my sister, Emma L. Borden, anything as she had her share of her father's estate and is supposed to have enough to make her comfortable." She signed the will as both Lizzie A. Borden and Lizbeth A. Borden.

Her sister died ten days later in Newmarket, New Hampshire.

They are both buried in Fall River's Oak Grove Cemetery, where the remains of Mr. and Mrs. Borden also lie.

Bridget Sullivan died in Butte, Montana, in March of 1948, at the age of eighty-two. She had gone west fifty-one years earlier, had settled in Anaconda, married a man whose last name was also Sullivan and—according to at least one report—had numerous children.

_____________

1 Providence Daily Journal, February 16, 1897, p. 1.
2 Victoria Lincoln,A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden By Daylight (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1967), p. 305.
3 Agnes DeMille, Lizzie Borden: A Dance of Death (Boston: Little, Brown, 1968), p. 84.
4 Boston Sunday Herald, June 4, 1905, p. 11.
5 Boston Sunday Post, April 13, 1913, p. 25.

From the novel Lizzie by Evan Hunter, copyright 1984 by Hui Corporation, printed with the author's permission.

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LBVML: Why did you choose the Borden murders as the subject matter of your novel LIZZIE and did the writing of the work present you with any unusual challenges?

As opposed to the mysteries I write as Ed McBain, I had written several Evan Hunter novels dealing with generational conflicts. Books like Mothers and Daughters, Sons, Far from the Sea, and especially Love, Dad . It seemed to me that someone accused of having killed her father and her stepmother was a generational conflict of monumental proportions. I decided to investigate the case and write about it if I thought it would serve my needs. It did. The only real challenge I faced was putting the events in chronological order, which was not the way they appeared in the almost 2,000-page trial transcript. I spent at least six months doing that before I wrote a word of the book.

LBVML: Your theory of the case, namely that Lizzie killed her stepmother Abby after having been unexpectedly discovered in bed with Bridget Sullivan, is a unique one and has inspired much discussion. Do you still subscribe to this scenario or have you developed another theory?

Frankly, I haven't given another thought to Lizzie Borden since I finished the book, and I have no reason to revise my original premise. My theory was based on news articles about Lizzie's sister leaving the house, never to return, never to see Lizzie again, after an argument following the "midnight entertainment of Lizzie's close friend, the actress Nance O'Neill." Her sister said in a later interview, "The happenings at the French Street house that caused me to leave, I must refuse to talk about." And the Reverend A. E. Buck advised her that "it was imperative" that she should "make her home elsewhere." Emma remarked, "I do not expect ever to set foot on the place while she lives." I don't know what all of that may suggest to anyone else, but I do know what it suggested to me.

LBVML: You are among an ever-growing group of Borden scholars who believe Lizzie Borden to have been a lesbian. Did you use this idea of her purely as a devise of fiction, or do you believe that Lizzie's murderous rage stems from her shame?

Not shame. I would certainly never suggest that any lesbian should be ashamed of her sexual preference. This is something quite else. Her stepmother calls her "Monster! Unnatural thing." If I may quote from the novel: "She immediately rejected this deformed image of herself, blind anger rising to dispel it, suffocating rage surfacing to encompass and engulf the hopelessness of her secret passion, the chance discovery by this woman who stood quaking now against the closed door to the guest room, the fearsome threat of revelation to her father, the unfairness and stupidity of not being allowed to live her own life as she CHOSE to live it!" Aside from that being some damn fine writing (he said modestly,) it certainly doesn't speak of shame. If anything, it's a cry for understanding. It's a woman pleading for the freedom to be herself.

LBVML: Are there any future plans for your work on Lizzie, or any other documentary work on the case?

Nope. Would anyone like to do the movie? I'm here. Meanwhile, there are too many new things to write.

LBVML: What books or documents on the case were influential to you in your writing of LIZZIE (and have you ever visited the murder house in Fall River)?

I didn't read any other novels or non-fiction books about the case. I studied the transcript. I studied newspaper reports. I learned the town of Fall River upside down and backwards, the murder house included. I learned all about London and the south of France in 1890, the time of Lizzie's visit there. That was all I needed to make my own judgment and write my own book. The rest, as they say, is fiction.

LBVML: You are extremely accessible and have your own web page. Why, after all these years, do you still consider it important to be available to your
fans?

Readers are what it's all about, aren't they? If not, why am I writing?

LBVML: Would you tell us a bit about your newest novel, as yet unpublished, entitled Fat Ollie's Book: A Novel of the 87th Precinct?

Fat Ollie's Book brings a peripheral character, Fat Ollie Weeks, into the spotlight. Together with the perennial Steve Carella of the 87th Precinct, Ollie investigates the baffling murder of a city councilman. But Ollie's mind and efforts are elsewhere. Someone has stolen the only copy of his now-completed first novel, a masterpiece in his own mind. The book (my book, not Ollie's) is funny, suspenseful, and probably a masterpiece in my own mind