hannah_doc's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
5.0
good_quiet_kitty's review against another edition
2.0
Actually quite dry for such a sensationalist title. I only persevered because it was so short.
simlish's review against another edition
3.0
Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso is a historical true crime story about the discovery of torso in a pond near Philadelphia in 1887 and the way that race and sex were peculiarly visible around it. The torso was of indistinguishable race, which caused the case to hit headlines in a way it wouldn't have, if the victim had been visibly black from the start. Hannah Mary Tabbs, the main suspect, accused her lover, the light skinned and white-passing George Wilson of the murder.
Kali Nicole Gross did a wonderful job of walking the reader through the crime, deliberately presenting evidence in the order that it was discovered. She occasionally widened her scope to the way that the crime and prosecution reflected the interactions of race and sex in 1887 Philadelphia. The most interesting of those wider looks was the response of the police to finding visibly black body parts during the trial period. There were multiple! Including a head! And none of them got the response that the torso garnered, with no follow up whatsoever on the part of the police. That really made Gross's point very strongly.
It was a little dry and very well footnoted -- more than 60 citations in most chapters! be still my beating heart! -- and not at all as tawdry or tabloid-y as one might expect from the title. The one thing I found a little perplexing was that Gross talked regularly about Hannah Mary Tabbs using violence to control people in a wide way, but all of her examples were of family/lovers, which is obviously still bad, but was also less wide ranging than Gross led me to expect?
The trial was by far the most interesting part of the book to me, and I think it was the most interesting part to Gross, as well. During the trial, George Wilson was viewed with great suspicion because of his ability to pass for white. He had much less evidence against him than Tabbs did, and yet he was the main target of the prosecution, and ended up sentenced to 14 years, as opposed to Tabbs' one. Tabbs managed to act in ways that Gross points out as generally reserved for white women.
I would have enjoyed it if it was longer, and had yet more cultural stuff in there -- it was a fairly narrowly focused book.
Kali Nicole Gross did a wonderful job of walking the reader through the crime, deliberately presenting evidence in the order that it was discovered. She occasionally widened her scope to the way that the crime and prosecution reflected the interactions of race and sex in 1887 Philadelphia. The most interesting of those wider looks was the response of the police to finding visibly black body parts during the trial period. There were multiple! Including a head! And none of them got the response that the torso garnered, with no follow up whatsoever on the part of the police. That really made Gross's point very strongly.
It was a little dry and very well footnoted -- more than 60 citations in most chapters! be still my beating heart! -- and not at all as tawdry or tabloid-y as one might expect from the title. The one thing I found a little perplexing was that Gross talked regularly about Hannah Mary Tabbs using violence to control people in a wide way, but all of her examples were of family/lovers, which is obviously still bad, but was also less wide ranging than Gross led me to expect?
The trial was by far the most interesting part of the book to me, and I think it was the most interesting part to Gross, as well. During the trial, George Wilson was viewed with great suspicion because of his ability to pass for white. He had much less evidence against him than Tabbs did, and yet he was the main target of the prosecution, and ended up sentenced to 14 years, as opposed to Tabbs' one. Tabbs managed to act in ways that Gross points out as generally reserved for white women.
I would have enjoyed it if it was longer, and had yet more cultural stuff in there -- it was a fairly narrowly focused book.
mysterymom46's review against another edition
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content, Body horror, and Gore
Moderate: Infidelity, Racism, Physical abuse, Murder, and Child abuse
srmilesauthor's review against another edition
3.0
Historical accounts of the lives of black women are so rare that I had to pick this one up. Especially, in light of the fact that I'm just beginning some research on a historical novel I've had brewing in my brain for a good while now. While the gritty details might titlate the true crime set I was disappointed with the lack of compare and contrast between Hannah and other everyday black women. I wanted to know how propriety was handled in the Victorian era of such repression that buffered against the era of slavery, where rape was common, relationships could be torn apart and sex outside of wedlock was more common than not. Did black folk, and black women especially live with a level of shame at all times or was the culture more forgiving? I wanted more information and I was definitely disappointed with the inordinate amount of notes at the end. It made it feel more like a dissertation than a quick read.