American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, the Birth of the "it" Girl and the Crime of the Century, by Paula Uruburu

American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, the Birth of the "It" Girl and the Crime of the Century by Paula Uruburu

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


     This book put me off reading for over a year. And I'm someone who carries around books in her purse (sometimes more than one). I marked pages as I went along, thinking I'd write a scathing yet in-depth review as soon as I finished, but by the time I did the very sight of it made me sick.
     It's a shame, because the subject matter is fascinating, and it seems that Uruburu accessed a lot of information. However, that information was put together extremely poorly. From insane sentence structure to repetitive, narrow-minded taglines for certain characters to bizarre and hypocritical "points," it's a frustrating slog. I wanted to know the rest of the story as I went, but I was practically spitting on the book every time I picked it up. I'd pick out passages to read aloud to others, exclaiming, "and that entire passage is one sentence!" or, "in whose mind could this make sense?" Obviously I don't have the book anywhere near me to offer page numbers for examples, but try opening it at random.
     One truly irritating aspect that poked me again and again like a giant tack was that Uruburu claims this book comes from a feminist angle, but she paints ridiculously unfeminist caricatures of the women here. And I'm not even a feminist! Evelyn Nesbit is somehow a perpetual child to be sympathized with and clucked over, even though in that period, many women her age (for most of the book) would be self-sufficient and/or married. Her mother is always depicted as an overbearing, manipulative, interfering master who is peddling her "child." This so-called child was hardly a child for most of what went on. If she was manipulated or Svengali-ed into doing things she didn't want, she was a fool, not a victim. I think perhaps apart from marriage to her Jekyll & Hyde husband, Evelyn didn't get into anything she wasn't choosing for herself.
     I thought this was going to be a fantastic book. I love the era, love true crime, love history. The plain facts are interesting, and of course the book contains them. So much information! You can tell the time and effort it took to amass all this research. I feel that Uruburu was genuinely enraptured with the history. But what has been done with all the raw material is a tragedy. I blame the editors as much as the author, because they should have been ashamed to let the incredible potential here get formed into and published as this revolting mess.
     I feel on the way to recovery from this nightmare, and just read a fabulous historical true crime book I highly recommend: The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective I wouldn't even sully it by mentioning it in the review of American Eve, but I do have mercy on my fellow readers and want you all to find the best books to read.



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