A review by foggy_rosamund
Jane: A Murder by Maggie Nelson

3.0

Jane was murdered in 1969, when she was a law student in Michigan. Nelson never met her aunt, but wrote this collection as a tribute to her, exploring the ways her death reverberated through the family, and the details of her short life. Nelson includes extracts from Jane's childhood diaries, from letters, and from discussions with parents and friends. It's a moving and imaginative tribute, but it doesn't have the depth or emotional power of Nelson's later work. It feel fragmentary without grabbing our attention. Jane's murder was explored in true crime books and made headline news, and Nelson shows the importance of Jane's life, instead of focusing on her death. The prose and poems here are careful and understated, and it's very competently handled, but I was looking for an emotional pull that Nelson doesn't achieve.