Christina

An Engaging and Encompassing Read

Revisado: 06-14-23

Patti McCracken weaves together a true crime tale with all the fleshed out details of literary fiction. Similar to other recent non-fiction authors like Erik Larson, McCracken uses a mix of research and direct quotes with her own extrapolations to keep the work fairly fast paced and engaging. The connections and wide scope of the work bring to life how much this shocking story was not as singular or remote as it may appear. McCracken’s descriptions are fleshed out and do not leave much to the imagination, yet it still gives room for the listener to formulate their own questions and perspectives on the actions of the women of Nagyrév.
I found in general the descriptions to be the strongest point of the book. The more we can relate to historical events and people as humans, the better we can learn and consider our own perspectives. On this point, I sometimes felt there was a dearth of description or footnotes on aspects of Romani and Hungarian culture or history that could help fill in my dearth of knowledge. If I had a physical copy of the book, perhaps this would be less of a problem. I felt that in the notes and afterward McCracken brought more foreword, and I personally wouldn’t have minded more embedded in the main text.
The narrator, Gabra Zackman, also helps bring this story to life. Her clear and distinct voices between characters helped to keep track of them easily in a drama that ends up swallowing the town whole and its women with it. Even at 1.25x speed, Zackman’s performance never felt choppy or robotic. Occasionally the crier’s voice seemed a little over the top, but perhaps that is why they’re the crier! The only lull for me was towards the last few chapters of the book, wherein I felt that I knew what would happen and therefore felt no need to listen intently and in fact set it aside for nearly a few weeks even though I only had about twenty minutes to go!
I heartily recommend this book to anyone that has wanted to dip their toe into non-fiction, but the prospect of a dry textbook scared them off or to the true crime reader in need of a new history to tell their friends about.

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