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Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession
by Rachel Monroe
A provocative and original investigation of our cultural fascination with crime, linking four archetypes - Detective, Victim, Defender, Killer - to four true stories about women driven by obsession.
In this illuminating exploration of women, violence, and obsession, Rachel Monroe interrogates the appeal of true crime through four narratives of fixation. In the 1940s, a frustrated heiress began creating dollhouse crime scenes depicting murders, suicides, and accidental deaths. Known as the "Mother of Forensic Science," she revolutionized the field of what was then called legal medicine. In the aftermath of the Manson Family murders, a young woman moved into Sharon Tate's guesthouse and, over the next two decades, entwined herself with the Tate family. In the mid-nineties, a landscape architect in Brooklyn fell in love with a convicted murderer, the supposed ringleader of the West Memphis Three, through an intense series of letters. After they married, she devoted her life to getting him freed from death row. And in 2015, a teenager deeply involved in the online fandom for the Columbine killers planned a mass shooting of her own.
Each woman, Monroe argues, represents and identifies with a particular archetype that provides an entryway into true crime. Through these four cases, she traces the history of American crime through the growth of forensic science, the evolving role of victims, the Satanic Panic, the rise of online detectives, and the long shadow of the Columbine shooting. In a combination of personal narrative, reportage, and a sociological examination of violence and media in the twentieth and twenty-first century, Savage Appetites scrupulously explores empathy, justice, and the persistent appeal of violence.
"This is a book sure to please fans of mystery and true crime. An insightful invitation to consider the contexts and causes of a gritty cultural obsession." - Kirkus Reviews
"[A]n engrossing look at a counterintuitive yet well-established phenomenon...Readers who have pondered their own interest in true crime stories will welcome Monroe's incisive approach to the topic." - Publishers Weekly
"Monroe's writing is superb and each woman's story is fascinating…true crime aficionados will appreciate this spin on the genre." - Booklist
"I usually stick to fiction, but one standout nonfiction read was journalist Rachel Monroe's forthcoming Savage Appetites, which looks at the connection between women and the mania for true crime. My favorite section was about Frances Lee, an upper-class Boston spinster whose foremost obsession was creating dollhouse-proportioned murder scenes that she called her 'nutshells.'" - Lauren Mechling, Los Angeles Times
"In Savage Appetites, Rachel Monroe brings a rigorous and illuminating gaze to some of our most disturbing fascinations...I read this book in a single day, but I know I'll be thinking about it for years to come—especially its keen appreciation for the mystery of what drives us through this world." - Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams and The Recovering
"Savage Appetites, Rachel Monroe's study on 'women, crime and obsession,' can properly be described as brilliant. It informs, entertains, and leaves readers with new cultural perspectives that are long overdue. I'm now a Rachel Monroe fan and after you read this book, you will be too." - Jeff Guinn, author of Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson and The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple
This information about Savage Appetites was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Rachel Monroe is currently a writer and volunteer firefighter living in Marfa, Texas. She's written about #vanlife for the New Yorker; a romantic con man for the Atlantic, pick-up artists for New York magazine; child abductions on the Navajo Nation for Esquire; and a small-town quilting scandal for Texas Monthly. Her work has appeared in The Best American Travel Writing 2018, the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, the Guardian, the Believer, and elsewhere. She is the author of Savage Appetites.
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