This is the story of Jane, the (unofficial) third victim of the Trailside Killer, David Carpenter. Although her murder was never officially solved, it is believed that she was this man’s victim.

The story is told through a mixture of poetry, prose and diary entries(written by the victim when she was 15/16). This is an ambitious book, and it must have been very hard to write. But the result is actually beautiful and haunting. Everything comes together perfectly.

I was intrigued by how much the murder has affected the whole family, even those (like the author) who never got to meet her.

I would have liked to know more about the results of the author’s research into this. She said at the beginning that she has put in a lot of research, but there’s not a lot about the murder. It is mostly about the feelings of the author and her mum, and Jane’s feelings as a teen.

It made me sad when I read Jane’s diary entries. To read of someone who should have had their whole life ahead of them, but who, instead, had their life snuffed out so soon, was heartbreaking. There was so much hope and discovery in her diary entries. It’s very sad.

I liked how the author ended with her and her mum visiting Jane’s grave and the marker of where she was found. It felt right to end it there.

Poetry lovers. It's unusual in its style, and that was part of what drew me to it. It is also a murder mystery that may — or may not — have been solved.

Reading Jane's own diary entries. Though they made me very sad, she could have been any teenager going through self-discovery the way we all do.

The way the mystery side of the story isn't much touched upon. It's a bit vague.

Research the Trailside Killer and his crimes.

Sad. Very sad.

Maggie Nelson. From Amazon: "Maggie Nelson is the author of several acclaimed books in multiple genres, including Pathemata, Or, The Story of My Mouth (Wave Books, 2025), Like Love: Essays and Conversations (Graywolf Press, 2024), On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint (Graywolf Press, 2021), The Argonauts (Graywolf Press, 2015), global best-seller, one of the New York Times's Top 100 Books of the 21st Century, and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; a landmark work of cultural, art, and literary criticism titled The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning (Norton, 2011), which was named a NY Times Notable Book of the Year; the cult classic Bluets (Wave Books, 2009), which was named by Bookforum one of the 10 best books of the past 20 years; a memoir about her family, media spectacle, and sexual violence titled The Red Parts (originally published by Free Press in 2007, reissued by Graywolf in 2016); and a critical study of painting and poetry titled Women, the New York School, and Other True Abstractions (University of Iowa, 2007; winner, the Susanne M. Glassock Award for Interdisciplinary Scholarship). Her books of poetry include Something Bright, Then Holes (Soft Skull Press, 2007), Jane: A Murder (Soft Skull, 2005; finalist, the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir), The Latest Winter (Hanging Loose Press, 2003), and Shiner (Hanging Loose, 2001). She has been the recipient of a Creative Capital Literature Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship in Nonfiction, an NEA Fellowship in Poetry, and an Andy Warhol Foundation/Creative Capital Arts Writers Grant. In 2016 she received a MacArthur "genius" grant. She currently teaches at the University of Southern California."

It's a powerful story.

It is mostly written in free verse poetry. If you don't like that, don't read it.

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Created Feb 28, 2025 at 5:20am • Submit your own review...