On My Bookshelf

This is one of the most bizarre books I've read in a long while. I'm only about a quarter of the way through but the subject matter is so potent. It's non-fiction, true crime, but it reads like literary fiction. The author's voice is barely present. The entire "story" is told by the various voices of friends, socialites, family members, police reports, hospital reports, newspaper articles, and letters. Everyone contradicts each other and the reader is constantly unsure what to believe. The family this book chronicles is... interesting, to say the least. Wealth, empire, high society, all that good stuff, collides to create a fantastical, but disturbing, portrait of insanity. I am very curious to see the film, which stars Julianne Moore. But, I want to wait until I have finished the book, so I have a point of reference from which to draw. Films never seem to capture their literary counterparts as well as they could. In some cases, though, they can often stand on their own, like The Constant Gardner. (For example, the film and novel are complimentary, not shadows of each other). Anyhoo, I highly recommend it. The atmosphere is very "Leave it to Beaver" because it takes place in the fifties and sixties. The writers have researched the family with a fine toothed comb, and provided every tid bit of relevant background information the reader could possibly need. At times it is contradictory, purposely so, just to prove to the reader how fallible "eye witness" accounts can be. These tactics, on their part, are what make this book so effective. So far, the most astoundingly bizarre moment in the text is that a short story, written by a member of the iconic, wealthy family, is included: "Milk". The reader will not know what conclusions to make; but first, he/she will have to scrape his/her jaw off the floor from sheer astonishment. I don't want to ruin it for those who haven't read it so "mum" is the word. Even more is that I didn't expect the writers to include this part of the story. They often share seemingly irrelevant threads into other family member's pasts for, what seems like, random purposes. The reader later realizes the utter importance of every word.

Check it out.