New Lizzie Borden Trial Book Due out in March

[Stefani]

http://www.amazon.com/Lizzie-Borden-Tri ... zie+borden

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Michael Martins tells me there will be a book signing at the Fall River Historical Society in the Spring (they reopen April 7th).

Joe Conforti is known to me. I hope this book is FABULOUS!

Lizzie Borden on Trial: Murder, Ethnicity, and Gender (Landmark Law Cases and American Society) Hardcover – March 11, 2015
by Joseph A. Conforti (Author)

From Amazon.com: Most people could probably tell you that Lizzie Borden "took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks," but few could say that, when tried, Lizzie Borden was acquitted, and fewer still, why. In Joseph A. Conforti's engrossing retelling, the case of Lizzie Borden, sensational in itself, also opens a window on a time and place in American history and culture.

Surprising for how much it reveals about a legend so ostensibly familiar, Conforti's account is also fascinating for what it tells us about the world that Lizzie Borden inhabited. As Conforti—himself a native of Fall River, the site of the infamous murders—introduces us to Lizzie and her father and step-mother, he shows us why who they were matters almost as much to the trial's outcome as the actual events of August 4, 1892. Lizzie, for instance, was an unmarried woman of some privilege, a prominent religious woman who fit the profile of what some characterized as a "Protestant nun." She was also part of a class of moneyed women emerging in the late 19th century who had the means but did not marry, choosing instead to pursue good works and at times careers in the helping professions. Many of her contemporaries, we learn, particularly those of her class, found it impossible to believe that a woman of her background could commit such a gruesome murder.

As he relates the details, known and presumed, of the murder and the subsequent trial, Conforti also fills in that background. His vividly written account creates a complete picture of the Fall River of the time, as Yankee families like the Bordens, made wealthy by textile factories, began to feel the economic and cultural pressures of the teeming population of native and foreign-born who worked at the spindles and bobbins. Conforti situates Lizzie's austere household, uneasily balanced between the well-to-do and the poor, within this social and cultural milieu—laying the groundwork for the murder and the trial, as well as the outsize reaction that reverberates to our day. As Peter C. Hoffer remarks in his preface, there are many popular and fictional accounts of this still-controversial case, "but none so readable or so well-balanced as this."

[pld0128]

Looking forward to reading this and hearing what the rest of you think about it!

[twinsrwe]

Stefani, thank you for the information you posted, I think this sounds like a 'must have book', so I pre-ordered it on Amazon.com.

[Curryong]

Yes, indeed! Hopefully it will be on Kindle or else it will be back to wait, wait, wait, for me!

[Fargo]

I have been behind. I discovered there are about 3 new Lizzie books that I was unaware of. Paypal time.

[pld0128]

I just got notified from Amazon that the new book "Lizzie Borden on Trial" is being sent out ahead of schedule and I'm due to receive it 3/11 ! Yay!!

[patsy]

Wow, I'll have to add it to my list over there too. Sounds good. Thanks for the heads up.

[snokkums]

Great!! I new book. I love getting new Lizzie books to see how accurate the information is.