Lizzie Borden

Elizabeth Engstrom's Lizzie Borden is not a true crime book, but rather an exquisitely crafted novel about a bright young woman whose filial love is strained to the limits by poverty and the desire to break free of a stifling family. The central characters, the oppressive summer heat, and the floor plan are drawn from the 1892 Massachusetts case in which Lizzie Borden was tried for the presumed hatchet murders (the weapon was never found) of her father and stepmother, and acquitted of the crime. But the personalities and motivations of the characters are the author's own invention. As she puts it, "My purpose is not to offend; it is to justify." And justify she does--if violence is ever justifiable--as we learn of the peculiar architecture, both physical and psychological, of a family whose every movement seems designed to torment poor Lizzie. This is a grim, alluring, and vividly sexual story.