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Overview
From Sarah Weinman, the award-winning editor of Unspeakable Acts, a groundbreaking new anthology showcasing the future of the true crime genre
True crime, as an entertainment genre, has always prioritized clear narrative arcs: victims wronged, police detectives in pursuit, suspects apprehended, justice delivered. But what stories have been ignored?
In Evidence of Things Seen, fourteen of the most innovative crime writers working today cast a light on the cases that give crucial insight into our society. Wesley Lowery writes about a lynching left unsolved for decades by an indifferent police force and a family's quest for answers. Justine van der Leun reports on the thousands of women in prison for defending themselves from abuse. May Jeong reveals how the Atlanta spa shootings tell a story of America.
Edited by acclaimed writer Sarah Weinman, and with an introduction by attorney and host of the Undisclosed podcast Rabia Chaudry, this anthology pulls back the curtain on how crime itself is a by-product of America's systemic harms and inequalities. And in doing so, it reveals how the genre of true crime can be a catalyst for social change. These works combine brilliant storytelling with incisive cultural examinations--and challenge each of us to ask what justice should look like. Evidence of Things Seen introduces the new classics of true crime.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9780063233928
- ISBN-10: 0063233924
- Publisher: Ecco Press
- Publish Date: July 2023
- Dimensions: 8.24 x 5.56 x 0.73 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.54 pounds
- Page Count: 304
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Sarah Weinman’s 2020 true crime anthology, Unspeakable Acts, used the true crime genre as a startling, sometimes terrifying mirror to accurately reflect humanity’s desire to both enact and consume violence. Evidence of Things Seen: True Crime in an Era of Reckoning now extends the themes explored in that anthology, confronting the thorny question of what we should do with this knowledge of society’s darker impulses. The book’s title is a riff on James Baldwin’s 1985 essay on the Atlanta child murders, “Evidence of Things Not Seen,” which examined how, in a city “too busy to hate,” racism still blinded police, media and politicians to the humanity of the victims, their grieving families and the accused. In this vein, every essay in this book takes it as a given that forces such as social media, misogyny, racism and classism play essential roles in how we perceive crime, from the commission of the crime itself and our perceptions of the victim to the penalties for the wrongdoers. Then the essayists explore the implications of those truths. For example, Samantha Schuyler’s “The Short Life of Toylin Salau and a Legacy Still at Work” links the invisibility of Black victims of rape and murder to the violent and racist policing of communities of color. In “Who Owns Amanda Knox?” exoneree Amanda Knox asks how and whether the wrongly accused can regain their lives and privacy in the era of social media sensationalism. Mallika Rao’s heartbreaking “Three Bodies in Texas” details the destruction of an immigrant family in Frisco, Texas. And Sophie Haigney’s confessional “To the Son of the Victim” questions whether intrusions into private grief are justified by the public’s “right to know.” Weinman’s sensitive selection of these and other articles in the anthology will provoke a wide range of reactions—sorrow, anger, indignation and even optimism. Perhaps they will also provoke a reckoning with how true crime lovers engage with stories of transgression and justice.
Sarah Weinman’s 2020 true crime anthology, Unspeakable Acts, used the true crime genre as a startling, sometimes terrifying mirror to accurately reflect humanity’s desire to both enact and consume violence. Evidence of Things Seen: True Crime in an Era of Reckoning now extends the themes explored in that anthology, confronting the thorny question of what we should do with this knowledge of society’s darker impulses. The book’s title is a riff on James Baldwin’s 1985 essay on the Atlanta child murders, “Evidence of Things Not Seen,” which examined how, in a city “too busy to hate,” racism still blinded police, media and politicians to the humanity of the victims, their grieving families and the accused. In this vein, every essay in this book takes it as a given that forces such as social media, misogyny, racism and classism play essential roles in how we perceive crime, from the commission of the crime itself and our perceptions of the victim to the penalties for the wrongdoers. Then the essayists explore the implications of those truths. For example, Samantha Schuyler’s “The Short Life of Toylin Salau and a Legacy Still at Work” links the invisibility of Black victims of rape and murder to the violent and racist policing of communities of color. In “Who Owns Amanda Knox?” exoneree Amanda Knox asks how and whether the wrongly accused can regain their lives and privacy in the era of social media sensationalism. Mallika Rao’s heartbreaking “Three Bodies in Texas” details the destruction of an immigrant family in Frisco, Texas. And Sophie Haigney’s confessional “To the Son of the Victim” questions whether intrusions into private grief are justified by the public’s “right to know.” Weinman’s sensitive selection of these and other articles in the anthology will provoke a wide range of reactions—sorrow, anger, indignation and even optimism. Perhaps they will also provoke a reckoning with how true crime lovers engage with stories of transgression and justice.