The Red Parts, Maggie Nelson
The Red Parts, Maggie Nelson
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The Red Parts
Autobiography of a Trial

Author: Maggie Nelson

Narrator: Cassandra Campbell

Unabridged: 5 hr 33 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/05/2016

Synopsis

A chilling genre-busting memoir by a major American essayist Late in 2004, Maggie Nelson was looking forward to the publication of her book Jane: A Murder, a narrative in verse about the life and death of her aunt, who had been murdered thirty-five years before. The case remained unsolved, but Jane was assumed to have been the victim of an infamous serial killer in Michigan in 1969.Then, one November afternoon, Nelson received a call from her mother, who announced that the case had been reopened; a new suspect would be arrested and tried on the basis of a DNA match. Over the months that followed, Nelson found herself attending the trial with her mother and reflecting anew on the aura of dread and fear that hung over her family and childhood—an aura that derived not only from the terrible facts of her aunt’s murder but also from her own complicated journey through sisterhood, daughterhood, and girlhood. The Red Parts is a memoir, an account of a trial, and a provocative essay that interrogates the American obsession with violence and missing white women, and that scrupulously explores the nature of grief, justice, and empathy.

About Maggie Nelson

Maggie Nelson is a poet, critic, and award-winning author of The Argonauts, Bluets, The Art of Cruelty, Jane: A Murder , and The Red Parts, among others.

About Cassandra Campbell

Original bio sent from Cassandra: Cassandra Campbell began doing voice overs as the voice for Calvin Klein’s Italian commercials. This was followed by commercial and documentary recording in both English and Italian. She has recorded many audiobooks and has received several AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as an Audie® Award nomination. As an actress and director, she has worked at the Public, the Mint, the Berkshire Theatre Festival, Stagewest, Theatreworks, the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, Millmountain Theatre, the National Shakespeare Company, and the New York Fringe Festival.  

Reviews

Goodreads review by emma

maggie nelson maggie nelson maggie nelson!!! this is a frenzied rendition of what it is like to bear witness to the trial of a family member's murder, and an equally rushed and emotive exploration of what true crime represents, who owns the right to tell a story, why we do what we do to each other, a......more

Goodreads review by Adam

A more direct Nelson than I'm used to, as she uses her characteristic analytic prose to discuss the trial of her aunt's murderer, the dissolution of a treasured relationship, and the death of her father. Much is fascinating here (though Nelson doesn't NEED an interesting subject to write interesting......more

Goodreads review by Dave

Maggie Nelson was born 4 years after her Aunt Jane Mixer, a University of Michigan law student, was murdered, in 1969, at the age of 23. Jane’s death was presumed to be one of “The Michigan Murders,” a series of women killed in the Ann Arbor area for which John Collins was found or assumed guilty. J......more

Quotes

“A harrowing but clear-eyed examination of crime’s emotional fallout.” Guardian (London)

“Nelson’s resistance to the easy answer, her willingness to reach a kind of conclusion and then to break it, to probe further and further, to ask about her own complex and not entirely noble intentions instead of facilely condemning others, make The Red Parts an uneasy masterpiece.” NPR

“Rarely does a book come along that combines such extraordinary lyricism and ethical precision with the sense that the author is writing for her very life.” Annie Dillard, Pulitzer Prize–winning author

“A book-long riff on the first-person essay that Joan Didion built. A genre-buster…Nelson intertwines psychoanalysis, personal memoir, and true-crime tidbits into a darkly intelligent page-turner.” Time Out

“Nelson’s book is more a reflection on our personal and cultural myth making surrounding murders than an exploration into this particular killer and what he did. This take is refreshing, and combined with Nelson’s intense, visual, and sometimes darkly funny prose, it makes The Red Parts an unforgettable book.” BookPage

“Blending a poet’s passion and a journalist’s cool eye, Nelson has produced a distinctive story of an otherwise ordinary family’s encounter with unspeakable violence.” Shelf Awareness

“Free from the bounds of genre, but not untethered as in floating—not wispy or in flight. As a text, The Red Parts bears weight, though it moves nimbly; it is expansive, shifting, and sprawling, eddying into small moments of memory and time before flooding outward, straining against the limits of the writer and the writer’s mind.” Literary Hub

Awards

  • Publishers Weekly Pick
  • Indie Next List
  • A Flavorwire Pick
  • Library Journal Editor’s Pick
  • NPR Best Book
  • Guardian Best Book of the Year
  • New York Times pick
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