Expected Publication January 1, 2020, Hachette Books
*Note: I received an advanced reader copy of this book from the publisher via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review*
I have never included spoiler information in a review, and I’m not about to start here, so I will just give you the publisher’s description:
In the early evening of June 25, 1980, Vicki Durian, 26, and Nancy Santomero, 19, were killed in an isolated clearing in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. They were hitchhiking to a festival known as the Rainbow Gathering but never arrived. For thirteen years no one was prosecuted for the “Rainbow Murders,” though suspicion was cast on a succession of local men. In 1993, a local farmer was convicted, only to be released when a known serial killer and diagnosed schizophrenic named Joseph Paul Franklin claimed responsibility. With the passage of time, as the truth seemed to slip away, the toll became more inescapable–the unsolved murders were a trauma, experienced on a community scale.
Emma Copley Eisenberg spent five years re-investigating these brutal acts, which once captured the national media’s imagination, only to fall into obscurity. A one-time New Yorker who took a job in Pocahontas County, Eisenberg shows how a mysterious act of violence against a pair of middle-class outsiders, has loomed over all those involved for generations, shaping their identities, fates, and the stories they tell about themselves. In The Third Rainbow Girl, Eisenberg follows the threads of this crime through the complex history of Appalachia, forming a searing portrait of America and its divisions of gender and class, and of its violence.
(From the publisher’s website)
This was an interesting book. I didn’t love it, but I did enjoy it. Eisenberg weaved together an interesting narrative that crossed back and forth between true crime and memoir. I felt like
everything fit together, except when it didn’t. Sometimes the presence of the memoir felt a little bit forced. I think that both stories are fascinating, but I think I would have rather read them
separately.
With that being said, her research into the “Rainbow Murders” was clearly extensive and well done. She never tries to force the reader into believing one thing or another, but instead presents the information as it was presented to her, as well as presenting her conclusions at each stage, and
allows the reader to reach their own decision.
Rating:
Like I said, I wasn’t in love with it, but I’m definitely in like. It was solidly researched and well-written, even if I don’t think that the memoir bits always fit in like Eisenberg wanted them to. Every aspect of this case, and what happened to Vicki and Nancy just really, really sucks – that’s not part of my review, but I felt like I needed to say it.
