In the spring of 1969, the body of Jane Mixer was found, fully clothed and beside her copy of Catch 22, in Denton Cemetary, Michigan. This was the third of seven brutal rape-murders, known as the Michigan Murders, to plague the area surrounding Michigan University.
This murder, that of her aunt, would haunt Meggie Nelson throughout her life. Her 2005 collection, Jane: A Murder, explores the murder and its implications, attempting to place it in personal, family, and historical contexts as it does so.
Nelson's collection, called "inventive, delicate, searing" sources material from a wide range of texts-- Jane's own diary entries, Edgar Allen Poe quotes, photos of Jane, family stories, and Michigan news sources. Nelson expertly interweaves and collages these nonfiction sources-- which often appear as their own pieces-- with her own personal experiences, dreams, and imaginings.
The pieces are broken into unnumbered, thematic sections with titles such as "Figment," "How The Journey Was," "Order of Events," and "Some Questions."
Quoted text appears in quotation marks, italics, and header notations. Nelson notes that she has changed Jane's diary entries slightly to correct spelling and grammar, and, "although this is a 'true story,' [Nelson makes] no claim for the factual accuracy of its representation of events or individuals." Sources are also acknowledged in the Acknowledgements at the end of the collection.
https://softskull.com/dd-product/jane/
https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Murder-Maggie-Nelson/dp/1593766580
Read more of the poems here:
https://lithub.com/jane-a-murder/
Maggie Nelson's Website:
https://softskull.com/authors/maggie-nelson/
No comments:
Post a Comment