"Lizzie Borden took an axe, 

and gave her mother forty whacks. 

When she saw what she had done, 

she gave her father forty one!"

Morbidly enchanting and vibrantly disturbing, this is the story Lizzie Borden, one of America's most infamous murderers. Or is she?  The case has transfixed people for years and remains one of the most debated criminal cases.

The whole novel takes on the sing-song, claustrophobic feel of the cyclical nursery rhyme inspired by the same horrific events. At times you are convinced that Lizzie killed her parents and then something casts a shadow of doubt and then you are suddenly confronted with such madness that Lizzie can and must be the only culprit.

Sarah Schmidt portrays Lizzie as a childlike woman, both unattached to her family and incessantly co-dependent. Both brattish and coquettish, obscene and serene. Her writing is compelling and bewildering.

I didn't know anything about the case before starting this book and although I do love the true crime genre, this happened so long ago it wasn't on my radar. Well, that's completely changed! There's even a Netflix programme on the same story, starring Christina Ricci and a soon to be released (2018) biopic with Chloë Sevigny that I'm going to check out.


Despite being at times gory and so intense you need a long walk after, I did love this book and would highly recommend to anyone who has the slightest curiosity about the unsolved macabre events of 1892.

Lizzie Andrew Borden was an American woman who gained infamy after being tried and acquitted for the 1892 axe murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts.