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A review by erinbarton
The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alex Marzano-Lesnevich
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.0
not sure the blending of true crime and memoir aspects was entirely successful. the blurb definitely overinflated the “unsettling, uncanny familiarity” between the two stories - there were some parallels but only of small details. I definitely feel duped by the premise and expected much more of a personal connection between the author and the main criminal case rather than just she became extremely interested in it.
i feel some aspects repeatedly came up ie the author’s twin sister that died in early childhood, that didn’t really seem to hold any relevance to the book’s argument, however some details like the way her parents chose to ignore the sexual abuse from within the family seemed like such major revelations and was never addressed or reflected on? surely the covering up and continuation of a cycle of childhood sexual abuse is more relevant and holds more parallel to a true crime sexually motivated child murder case. the pedophile and convicted murderer is given an EXTREMELY sympathetic portrayal, while i agree with the authors anti-death penalty argument i’m not sure Ricky Langley deserved quite so much allowance and empathy.
while it’s hard to review a memoir of someone’s traumatic past and say it wasn’t interesting enough, i do feel like true crime elements were more engaging and the memoir portions became somewhat repetitive once the author had reached adolescence.
while it’s hard to review a memoir of someone’s traumatic past and say it wasn’t interesting enough, i do feel like true crime elements were more engaging and the memoir portions became somewhat repetitive once the author had reached adolescence.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, and Pedophilia