I saw a new true crime book tonight in the bookstore and it has a chapter on Lizzie in it. I naturally got all excited! The title of the book is "Did They Really Do It? From Lizzie Borden to the 20th Hijacker" by Fred Rosen. The author has written quite a few true crime titles. Unfortunately, this one is hooey.
I have a review of the book posted on Amazon.com. I just wrote the review a few minutes ago so if it doesn't come up right away it will in a day or so.
If anyone has purchased this book or has a copy would you please chime in as to your opinion? I counted dozens of errors and false assumptions. I would love it if authors would use the Internet or even a Library when doing research! He pulled most of this chapter out of his butt. And that's gotta hurt!
Jeesh, did the second reviewer have to slam me for trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about? I hate it when people think that someone who states their expertise in a field is bragging or marketing themselves. Suddenly I am the subject of the review!
I wish there was an emoticon to show me shaking my head.
He essentially agreed with you even if he was rather rude about it.
I for one tell everyone who will listen about the forum and hope we get new members all the time. Unless someone has an interest in Lizzie and searches the Internet for her they may not find this forum-- but there are many people interested in true crime and cases such as this that this forum may spark greater interest for in the Borden case.
Stefani -- People should appreciate the inclusion of your Lizzie Borden 'credentials' and take them in the spirit they were meant -- as validation of your criticism of the chapter dealing with the Borden murders.
It's disappointing when someone misinterprets your motives as self-serving when you're simply trying to provide helpful information.
Stefani has always had a goal to clear up on-line misconceptions of the case. That is why she created a Lizzie Andrew Borden website. That is why she was brought on staff at the old Lizzie Borden Quarterly- to be THE web presence who could evaluate Lizzie sites and familiarize the readership with on-line Lizzie info. This was in the advent of computer use.
Stefani has consistently contacted sites to help clear up case fallacies and has offered to work with webmasters over their content, for years. And when she finds a place like Wiki, that needs some cleaning up, and doesn't have time herself, she recruits a volunteer to do it- and then that effort is fact-checked.
Obviously the internet is such a huge place that not every site would ever be vetted, ever be contacted, ever be made aware of any glaring Borden case errors.
But Stefani is certainly the one most experienced at contact and at working with receptive webmasters who wish to get things right. I would consider a review by her to be almost doing someone a favor. She has professionally reviewed all kinds of publications in her career.
Harry @ Mon May 29, 2006 6:48 pm wrote:Maybe Lizzie used a cell phone. Geez, where do these people get their information? Seriously.
No fact checking by that publisher that's for sure.
I once thought that newspapers, magazines and publishers checked facts too. I was wrong. They don't or at least not very well. You would be amazed at how many books, including autobiographies, are filled with mistakes and in some cases flat out lies.
So what does one do? Isn't it against publishing rules to print as fact that which is not? I remember back when John Douglass' book came out with the chapter on Lizzie. I love Douglass and have read all his works, but his chapter on Lizzie was God-awful in its telling of factual details. It made me question the conclusions, which, if you didn't read the retelling of the case, seemed rather reasonable. But coming as it did after pages and pages of mistakes made me wonder.
My friend, that late Terence Duniho, wrote Douglass a long letter, pages and pages and pages, filled with corrections. Of course, he never heard back from him. I advised him then to approach the publisher, not the author. Author's will only get defensive, while publishers have a reputation to uphold.
So what to do about this drivel?
Here is one that is particularly offensive. I wrote them about the "problems" with the facts and they didn't care.
Stefani @ Mon May 29, 2006 9:26 pm wrote:So what does one do? Isn't it against publishing rules to print as fact that which is not? I remember back when John Douglass' book came out with the chapter on Lizzie. I love Douglass and have read all his works, but his chapter on Lizzie was God-awful in its telling of factual details. It made me question the conclusions, which, if you didn't read the retelling of the case, seemed rather reasonable. But coming as it did after pages and pages of mistakes made me wonder.
My friend, that late Terence Duniho, wrote Douglass a long letter, pages and pages and pages, filled with corrections. Of course, he never heard back from him. I advised him then to approach the publisher, not the author. Author's will only get defensive, while publishers have a reputation to uphold.
So what to do about this drivel?
Here is one that is particularly offensive. I wrote them about the "problems" with the facts and they didn't care.
Right now I am debating on whether or not to contact a co-author of a book on a late tennis player. The tennis player died back in 1990, and her second autobiography was published by St. Martin Press. The research I have done shows that her book is filled with lies and I mean big ones. The thing is I don't know to what degree the co-author was involved with the lies.
theebmonique @ Tue May 30, 2006 12:59 am wrote:DWilly,
This is off topic, but have you ever met Billie Jean King or Martina Navratilova ?
Tracy...
No. Although I wouldn't mind talking to BJK since she was coached by Alice Marble for a few months. I have met with a much lesser known player named Tory Fretz who is a good friend of BJK.
I am always buying anthologies of true crime re-tellings if they feature Lizzie in it. And I cannot recall ONE that got it right.
Remember "With an Axe"? That was so full of mis-information, I didn't even bother to read all of Lizzie's chapter - or the book at all.
Book publishers cannot afford to have fact checkers anymore. Nobody does anything about it really.
I posted a review on a Lucille Ball book that was negative to a degree. It was an older book. And some, uh, person just had to post their review putting me down. I don't know why someone just happened to read that same old book around the same time I did. Maybe authors get on there and post slams to reviewers that don't say the book is perfect.
I am irritated by so many websites on Lizzie that have their facts wrong. And there's a lot of them.
Why don't we have a special section on this website called something like "Reviews of Borden Books & Websites" ?(I would think up a catchier title) "The Real Dirt - Borden Book & Website Reviews"? A quote from something Lizzie would be great, or a Victorian phrase.
I would keep each title totally separate from one another, but allow any Forum member to post on it. So instead of US going to THEM telling them their site stinks and what it smells like (i.e. what they got wrong in it) we'll have it here and they will or won't see it. If the authors don't read it, or don't care, serious Lizzie students will get to read a fact-checked review about it. It would be providing a needed service that no one else has. Can we, Stef? Can we?
It would be nice if the Lizzieite experts on this forum could put a book together that sets the facts straight and contains a list of all the other Borden books that have their "facts" wrong. It could be a "heads up" warning to the upcoming Borden researchers. Somebody has got to get the FACTS straight. It could come in two volumes. Maybe it could be titled The Final Chapter. No wait...
As long as there is no obvious "malice", an author can pretty much print all kinds of lies and get away with it.
"Did you know that the "Her Royalness" works in a brothel in Kansas and Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa are her weekly Johns? Yes it's true! I heard it for myself! Isn't it a shame? Who'd a thunk it! Well as much as it pains me I guess I'll have to print these "facts" in my little book. I sure hope it doesn't tarnish her "Royalness's" image. I guess I'll just have to cry about it all the way to the bank"
Tabloids have been doing this for decades. Ever see the film "Absence of Malice?" I love that one.
BTW, I'm just kidding about "Her Royalness." However, Elvis was seen...
-1bigsteve (o:
"All of your tomorrows begin today. Move it!" -Susan Hayward 1973
Well, we advise our readers to start with source documents for a solid foundation in the case (available at the website), but how many have read those?
Should we take a poll?
The popular books are still read- and quoted, even on TV.
We are so much luckier than the JTheR people because we have a suspect and a trial. They never got that- just those contradictory Coronor's inquests where everyone had an agenda. We should wallow in the facts we have preserved for us.
I just had to share a few pages from the Fred Rosen book I am frustrated about. This is the first through third pages. How about we all just list the errors in these few pages? A good exercise in fact checking. Don't forget to use the primary sources for testimony!
Stefani, your review on Amazon is too kind. Without a doubt this is the most inaccurate account of the case I have ever read. SAVE YOUR MONEY and don't even think of buying it. Well, maybe if you like comedy.
I won't comment on the above 3 pages, but I have read the rest of the chapter on the case. Hilarious!
He can't even get the names of the people correct: "Sam" Hilliard, "Max" Dolan, "Pike Hansom" and "Thomas" Moody.
He has Emma younger than Lizzie.
Remember Mayor Coughlin visiting the house Saturday night? Well, this book has him phoning Lizzie. In fact, as Stefani pointed out in her review, there are phones all over.
Did you know it was Alice Russell who hired the private detective "Pike Hansom" (aka Orinton T. Hanscom)?
Half the time he even has Moody working on the defense team. He has Moody objecting to Knowlton calling Eli Bence.
He has Andrew worth $150 million in todays money and philanthropic, only being frugal when it came to his family.
My favorite paragraph says it all:
"Russell inadvertently gave Lizzie an alibi when she testified that Lizzie told her the morning of the murders that she had received a friend's note summoning her to her bedside; the friend was sick and needed Lizzie's assistance, which she readily gave that morning."
The errors go on and on and on, almost non-stop.
Like me, browse a copy at your local bookstore but don't spend your hard-earned money on it.
I know I ask perfection of a quite imperfect world
And fool enough to think that's what I'll find
Maybe it is a comedy, Harry. If it's not I'll never say another bad thing about Arnold Brown again!
Like I've said before, maybe some of you experts ought to write a book on the case and get the facts out there to the general population, on their book shelves. That would be nice.
With so many errors maybe he is talking about a different Lizzie Borden.
-1bigsteve (o:
"All of your tomorrows begin today. Move it!" -Susan Hayward 1973
I think it would be easier to count the facts stated correctly rather than those stated incorrectly. I come up with a grand total of one. Andrew Borden was indeed dead.
To do is to be. ~Socrates
To be is to do. ~Kant
Do be do be do. ~Sinatra
Yooper, after reading your wise post I realize that I have been thinking about this all glass half empty! You are such a positive person to find the one good fact. Three cheers!
Stefani @ Sat Jun 03, 2006 7:49 pm wrote:Yooper, after reading your wise post I realize that I have been thinking about this all glass half empty! You are such a positive person to find the one good fact. Three cheers!
Well, actually 2 facts. He was hit on the left side of his head.
-1bigsteve (o:
"All of your tomorrows begin today. Move it!" -Susan Hayward 1973
Could Rosen have discovered the magic of "fuzzy Logic?"
Lets see now:
Lizzie picked up the phone and called the Dr. even though there was no phone in the house and Lizzie never left the house to use someone else's phone... Oh, I get it, Lizzie used her cell phone!! Yea, that makes perfect sense, yea I can see the light now!
But, what I don't understand is why didn't Lizzie just call 9-1-1?? It wouldn't have cost her much in minutes would it?
-1bigsteve (o:
"All of your tomorrows begin today. Move it!" -Susan Hayward 1973
Seriously, I was going to write a sketch for a cabaret show I did 15 years ago, a kind of faux "You Are There" thing, in which it turned out Lizzie killed the old folks because they had been taken over by aliens. These days it would make more sense to have had them become the walking dead - "kill the brain and you kill the ghoul!"
Bob Gutowski @ Wed Jun 07, 2006 11:30 am wrote:Seriously, I was going to write a sketch for a cabaret show I did 15 years ago, a kind of faux "You Are There" thing, in which it turned out Lizzie killed the old folks because they had been taken over by aliens. These days it would make more sense to have had them become the walking dead - "kill the brain and you kill the ghoul!"
Their bodies taken over by aliens? Reminds me of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".
Did you plan to have Lizzie find the pods in the barn?
I know I ask perfection of a quite imperfect world
And fool enough to think that's what I'll find
I think Lizzie would've come upon Abby in the spare room, gazing out at a saucer in the sky and communicating with it. That would've led to the first hatchet attack. When Andrew came home, she'd have to get Bridget, whom she suspected, out of the way so she could tell him about what was happening. Surprise! he's already one of them, and Lizzie must act again to protect her town, her country, and the world.
Look at it this way - it's no more far-fetched than Karen Elizabeth Chaney's new book (see thread)!
Geez, where do these people get their information? Seriously.
