Lizzie Borden Book is AMAZING
I visited the Fall River Historical Society today to chat with the curators about the Society’s plans for the holidays (parties, book signings, new merchandise) and was granted the rare opportunity to view a copy of the finished product of Parallel Lives: A Social History of Lizzie A. Borden and Her Fall River, a few weeks before it is released to the public on November 21. The books are not in yet, so don’t all jump in your cars and try to snag one yet—what I saw was their only copy.
I wanted to share with you what I experienced when handling this long-awaited tome, and how it affected me to finally hold it in my hands.
You might say, “hey, it’s just a book, what is the big deal here?” Well, this book is not just any book. It is the culmination of almost ten years of research and it was a project that I was personally involved in as the book’s indexer and one of its proofreaders. I have read the book at least a dozen times, all tolled, and know it intimately. But I only worked with photocopies of chapters, both before typesetting and after, and had not seen the book as a real book before.
No, I didn’t turn to my index right off the bat, but, instead, slowly and with great care examined the dust jacket first. It has a silky feel that makes you really appreciate its sturdiness. It is pretty too, and when I turned the book over and saw the back of the jacket I did emit a little “oh”—there was my name as a contributor of a jacket blurb. Cool!
Then I opened the book, gingerly turning the pages one at a time. I was impressed with how well the photographs, both black and white and in color, reproduced. The paper is a heavy stock of white, which perfectly offsets the illustrations. I turned to the pages I knew contained the new images of Lizzie Borden, from the newly released “Auntie Borden” image from the back porch of Maplecroft, to the other as yet unseen snaps of Miss Lizzie that will surely amaze you.
I went to some pages that I wanted to see when the book came out in print—images that I knew would impress me by their clarity and striking tonality. It was only at the end of my perusal that I looked at the index to the book, and seeing it brought back memories of the months of work that went into its creation. I had naively thought that the work would take me but three weeks to accomplish. Foolish me! Some sixth months later, as the 9,000th entry was completed, I looked back at my plans and laughed out loud. Luckily, my long journey did not hold up this project. Both the indexing and the writing of the end notes by the Michael Martins and Dennis Binette ended at the same time.
I have to say that when I saw this book today I said out loud, “It’s . . . it’s . . . perfect!”
This book is not just about Lizzie Borden. It contains stories of Fall River and its people that have stayed with me. I won’t tease you with them now, but I guarantee that you will not be disappointed. One story that is told made one of the proofreaders, who is a man, cry because of its poignancy.
We meet all sorts of strange and wonderful people in the pages of Parallel Lives: city fathers, rich mill owners, common folk, and criminals. Every strata of Fall River’s society is represented in depth, thank goodness, as this is not some high society story, but a tale of greed, creativity, and murder. It has it all.
And in a few weeks time, you will finally see for yourself!