UBC: A Private Disgrace

[truepenny]

Lincoln, Victoria. A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden by Daylight. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1967. [library]

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After Lizzie Borden: The Legend, the Truth, the Final Chapter, A Private Disgrace was both a wonderful read and a relief.

Victoria Lincoln, like Arnold Brown, was a native of Fall River. More than that, she lived a block away from Lizzie Borden as a child and thus remembers both her and the society that created her. You don't have to agree with Lincoln to find her insights into Fall River's tightly closed upper class community--and its effects on Lizzie Borden--illuminating.

There are odd points at which Brown and Lincoln agree; for instance, they both argue that the judges at Lizzie's trial were horrendously biased. But whereas Brown has this terribly complicated conspiracy theory about how Lizzie was being tried and acquitted to hide the real murderer, Lincoln's theory is much simpler and more plausible: Lizzie's money hired as her defense lawyer an ex-Massachusetts governor who, as it happened, had appointed to the bench the judge who ran the trial. Robinson wanted to win the case, and Judge Dewey was cooperating to the hilt. Lincoln also makes it clear that once the judges disallowed Lizzie's damningly self-contradicting inquest testimony (and the equally damning testimony of the pharmacist who refused to sell her prussic acid), the prosecution's case pretty much fell apart.

Lincoln's theory of Lizzie's guilt is far more persuasive than Brown's theory of her innocence. Lincoln puts the pieces together--including outlying pieces like Lizzie's recurrent kleptomania--into a picture that makes sad and dreadful sense. She may or may not be right (I have no idea if her understanding of temporal lobe epilepsy is still valid or if it's been disproven), but she has made a really excellent effort.

Comments

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to recall the name of this book, as I thought you mught find it of interest, although it's far from the latest word on the topic. I couldn't get past "Um, Victoria, not sure about the last name, she was from Fall River herself..." I'm glad you found your way to it. I think her observations on the social and political factors, as well as the personal ones quite intriguing. Certainly, her reasons for a conspiracy seem much more rooted in the reality of thr Borden family's Fall River.

Whether or not Ms. Lincoln's theory has anything to it or not (IANANeuropsych specialist), it's safe to say there's been a lot of work done on the various types of epilepsy, including the temporal lobe forms, and on the condition called Intermittent Explosive Disorder, which, like some forms of TLE, appears to involve the amygdala. The Wikipedia articles on both TLE and IED appear to have some useful links in the bibliographies, in addition to the basic overviews they give on these disorders.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Have you read Angela Carter's short story 'The Fall River Ax Murders'? Brilliant use of what is known about Lizzie Borden, and an impressive use and subversion of the tropes of horror.