Jane

By Maggie Nelson,

Book cover of Jane: A Murder

Book description

Part elegy, part true crime story, this memoir-in-verse from the author of the award-winning The Argonauts expands the notion of how we tell stories and what form those stories take through the story of a murdered woman and the mystery surrounding her last hours.

Jane tells the spectral story of…


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Why read it?

1 author picked Jane as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Writing about crime is understandably fraught. Some true crime stories are told with genuine care and attention to impact, while others are definitely…not.

In Jane, Nelson finds a way to grapple with the death of her aunt and the impact it is had on her and her family. It was a guiding light for me when I thought about ways to tell an unwieldy story about murder.

Nelson leans on honesty, compassion, and curiosity to stay safely away from the most common true crime traps, and the result is a wonderful, affecting book. 

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