Friday, February 06, 2009

Beyond Bad: The Life and Crimes of Katherine Knight, Australia's Hannibal

What more can be said?

This book was jarring. Not so much because of the nature of the crime: it wasn't enough for Kat to stab her man (37 times) - nor stab him then skin him - but stab, skin, decapitate, and cook parts of him. What bothered me more was the way the author combined an air of excessive sophistication (who calls the door frame of a working class home an architrave? Every Australian?? John???) with the down-home informality of Australian speech (I reckon; he reckons; she reckons; we ALL reckon) and a liberal (read this as insufficiently edited) dosing of direct quotes from friends, neighbors, family. (Ala "I said to him, I said ...") I was not impressed.

Will I ever be happy with anyone not James Lee Burke?

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