[PDF] Download The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia by Emma Copley Eisenberg | Free EBOOK PDF English

Book Details Title: The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia Author: Emma Copley Eisenberg Number of pages: Publisher: Hachette Books (January 21, 2020) Language: English ISBN: 0316449237 Rating: 3,7     84 reviews

Book Description Review Apple Books, “Best Books of January”Amazon, “Best Books of January 2020” in Nonfiction and HistoryAmazon, “10 Best Mysteries & Thrillers of the Month”Indie Next Pick for February 2020O Magazine, “16 of the Best Books to Read this January!” Electric Lit, “20 Most Anticipated Debuts of Early 2020”The Millions, “Most Anticipated: The Great First-Half 2020 Book Preview! “Library Journal, “Editors’ Fall Picks for 2019”Publishers Weekly, “New True Crime Books 2019-2020”Southern Independent Bookseller Association, “Okra Pick for Winter 2020”SheReads, “Most Anticipated Memoirs of 2020”Esquire, “The Best Books to Elevate Your Reading List in 2020” “Headlines only deliver digestible tropes: Backcountry hicks confront hippie celebrants, two dead. But for the indefatigable Emma Eisenberg, approaching the murders at Briery Knob is about more than who fired the gun. An affection for this law-resistant corner of West Virginia enables her to transcend the simple formula of white male rage. Stepping into darkness, she extracts a nuanced sense of place and draws a map with historical connections.”―Nancy Isenberg, New York Times bestselling author of White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America“Part crime narrative and part soul-searching memoir, Emma Copley Eisenberg’s The Third Rainbow Girl has so much wisdom to offer. It’s about the corrosiveness of preconceived notions, and about how trauma ripples through cultures and generations, and about finding connections in others and strength in oneself. Rich in detail and sensitivity and intelligence and honesty, this is a book you won’t want to put down, one that will stay with you for a long time.”―Robert Kolker, New York Times bestselling author of Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery“Emma Copley Eisenberg has written a true crime book that brings to mind Truman Capote’s masterpiece In Cold Blood: elegantly written, perfectly paced, and vividly realized people and places. Equally impressive is her refusal to condescend to the inhabitants of the Appalachian community where the crimes occurred. The Third Rainbow Girl is a major achievement.”―Ron Rash, New York Times bestselling author of Serena“I blazed through this book, which is a true crime page-turner, a moving coming-of-age memoir, an ode to Appalachia, and a scintillating investigation into the human psyche’s astounding and sometimes chilling instinct for narrative. A beautiful debut that will stay with me for a long time, whose story mesmerizes even as it convinces you to find all mesmerizing stories suspect.”―Melissa Febos, Lambda Literary Award winner and author of Whip Smart and Abandon Me “Emma Eisenberg has distinguished herself as a reporter of remarkable wisdom and conscience, and her powers are on full display in The Third Rainbow Girl. Eisenberg’s meticulous, compassionate reporting does not promise any of the easy answers we might expect from true crime: neither about what happened to the “Rainbow Girls,” nor about poverty, injustice, and the fate of outsiders-whether hippies, hitchhikers, carpet baggers, or journalists-who give and take in this country’s poorest areas. Her insights are hard won, deep, and devastating, making this an unforgettable debut.”―Alice Bolin, author of Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession“The Third Rainbow Girl succeeds on two levels: first, as a deep dive inquiry into the 1980 murders of two young women in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, and the ensuing, tangled investigation, and second, as an intimate and humane portrait of a close-knit Appalachian community, the kind of place that is often reduced by outsiders to little more than a cliché of itself. As Jimmy Breslin once wrote of the legendary New York chronicler, Damon Runyan, ‘He did what all great reporters do … he hung out.’ A remarkable book.”―Richard Price, New York Times bestselling author of Lush Life“The Third Rainbow Girl is a staggering achievement of reportage, memoir, and sociological reckoning. We are better for this brilliant, gorgeous, and deeply humane book.”―Carmen Maria Machado, National Book Award Finalist and author of Her Body and Other Parties“In The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia, Emma Copley Eisenberg uses the unsolved 1980 murders of Vicki Durian, 26, and Nancy Santomero, 19, in Pocahontas County, WV, as a lens through which to consider the effects of violent acts on the communities where they occur.”―Library Journal“The Third Rainbow Girl is a fascinating hybrid work of true crime and memoir… In following the twists and turns of the case, Eisenberg paints an affectionate portrait of Appalachia that complicates and contradicts stereotypes about the region.”―Shelf Awareness Read more About the Author Emma Copley Eisenberg is a writer whose work has appeared in Granta, VQR, McSweeney’s, Tin House, The Paris Review online, The New Republic, Salon, Slate, and elsewhere. Her work has been supported by the Millay Colony for the Arts, the Elizabeth George Foundation, Lambda Literary, and the New Economy Coalition. Her reporting has been recognized by GLAAD, the New York Association of Black Journalists, the Deadline Club and Longreads’ Best Crime Reporting 2017. Eisenberg lives in Philadelphia, where she co-directs Blue Stoop, a community hub for the literary arts. Read more Customers Review: Bought this based on a NYT review, so I have only myself to blame. The author is a navel-gazer who is shocked, absolutely shocked, that the justice system is deeply flawed. Like so many outsiders she fell in love with Appalachia. As a former criminal defense investigator, I found nothing too unusual about the bungled investigation by short-sighted cops and prosecutors. A completely unsympathetic man was falsely convicted. It happens every day. This is a memoir with maybe 15% devoted to the crime, investigations, and trials. If you want to read a memoir by someone with an agenda, buy the book, but anyone looking to read the true crime genre should skip it unless you want to read about the author’s alcohol and intimacy problems. Emma Copley Eisenberg’s new book, “The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia” is beautifully written, but has one major flaw. Eisenberg tells the story of the 1980 murders of two young women, in eastern West Virginia. The women’s bodies were found in a secluded area near a country road. Both had been shot but they had not been raped. They were on their way to a Woodstock-like music festival – Rainbow Gathering – when they were killed. The local and state police handled the murder investigation and eventually a local man was arrested, tried, and served time in prison. The conviction was overturned when a nation-wide mass-murderer – who happened to be in West Virginia – confessed to the murders. Eisenberg does an excellent job of examining life in rugged Pocahontas County, West Virginia. She traces the rough history of the state – which broke off from Virginia during the Civil War – and its independent people and beautiful countryside. She looks at the two girls murdered and at the people who lived and worked near the scene of the murders. But what Emma Eisenberg also does is to insert herself into the story. And that’s the flaw.Oh, writing two stories and making one personal CAN work. I think I’ve read one or two book where it does, but it doesn’t work here, because aside from the same setting – Pocahontas County, West Virginia – Emma’s own story doesn’t mesh with the “Rainbow girls”. If you’re interested in college girls trying to find themselves and travel and settle in a totally different world in an attempt to do so, there are plenty of memoirs out there with the same life-plot. And, if you’re like me, you’re interested in the murder and after effects, and may find the side journey into Emma’s life distractingEisenberg really is a good writer and the book is interesting. I’d have given it five stars instead of four if the personal part had been left out. I just didn’t like being forced away from my interest in the main story. Now, maybe this won’t bother you…and I say, “great”. It bothered me but I’m glad I read the book. The cover of this nonfiction exploration of a 1980 crime has a fairly deathly quote….a reviewer blurbs that it is comparable to Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. Not a great way to start publicity, by comparing a book to the most epic bit of true crime ever.That blurb set the wrong tone. To assume anything can compare is asking for trouble and negative comparisons.First off, the author should be commended for all their extensive research. They covered every bit of history as to locale, people, attitudes, national mood, social justice, and on and on. They searched high and low for details to fill the story with facts. However, the should have also looked for an editor.It’s simply too much, “Much”. If she had wanted to focus on the culture of West Virginia, that would be one thing. Or to make character studies of the individuals who crossed paths with the victims, or the victims themselves. Or, a study could have been made of the investigation in a procedural sense. Or, or, and or. But instead, all of it is thrown in. We are given so much detail about each woman that they become amalgamated. There’s so much discussion of culture that it all runs together. It’s like when you read a paragraph that is only full of exclamatory sentences: there is no focus.Thus, this felt terribly unfocused and meandering without a solid thread to unite the reader to a conclusion. It could have well been done with one third removed and cleaned up so as to be more succinct. The author never seems to find her stride.Additionally, dialogue is a big issue. There isn’t much, and where it is found it doesn’t sound natural. It sounds how someone imagines a conversation sounds like, but it comes off too formal. This book is a long slog that barely delivers on its premise. The first section, about the crime itself and early days of the investigation, is well written and very interesting. After that the author launches a self-indulgent account of her personal time in the county where the deaths occurred. She was not part of the story, only a later observer and a superficial one at that. The thread of the crime facts and aftermath become tangled with and lost in her own story. She barely delivers on the book’s premise — a study of the decades-long impact of the crimes, accusations and suspicions of many community members, and the trials. She did some good interviews of the players but inserts herself into those as well and fails to provide a coherent summing up. At the end, she rushes to include several key interviews. As a minor point, she barely mentions the “third Rainbow Girl.” Catchy title but misleading. I heard the tail end of Maureen Corrigan’s review on Fresh Air, found it intriguing, and bought it on Thursday. I pretty much read it straight through. The crime story is interesting, but what drew me in were the author’s insights in the West Virginia/ Appalachian culture, coupled with her own experiences as a woman living in that culture. I am not a hugreader of non-fiction, but foundf myself engrossed.