Seven books on the dark side of true crime

Kate Brody lives in Los Angeles and holds an MFA from NYU. Her work has been published (or is forthcoming) in The New York Times, Literary Hub, Crime Reads, Noema, The Literary Review, The Guardian, Write or Die, and Largehearted Boy, among others. Rabbit Hole is her debut novel.

At Electric Lit Brody tagged seven true crime titles:

all share a few elements: colorful characters, evocative settings, heroes and villains. But most importantly, they are molded. What do I mean by this? Like memoir, they are of life but they do not necessarily resemble life. They are shaped, aesthetic objects.

One entry on the list:

True Story by Kate Reed Petty

This book is one of my favorite reads of the last few years. A wildly inventive, formally playful look at the fallout from a high school sexual assault, True Story is interested in the role of memory and the way a single, monolithic story can become the dominant narrative around a crime. Alex, the victim at the center of the story, must ultimately defend herself not only against her possible assailants (and the community that rallied to protect the young athletes) but against her friend, Haley, an aspiring filmmaker keen on flattening and commodifying her story.

Read about the other titles on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue