A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden by Daylight

I have read many, many books about the Lizzie Borden case, and this one is the best. Not only is it so well-written that I find it impossible to put down, it gives an indepth history of the case and presents many facts which previously had been ignored. Although I don't necessarily believe Miss Lincoln's solution to the case (her diagnosis of Lizzie's temporal epilepsy is a bit far-fetched), I entirely believe her assertions that Lizzie hid her dress under another dress, that Lizzie wore her father's coat while she killed him, and that Lizzie did go to the barn to break the hatchet handle with the "vice-like thing" and was seen by the ice cream vendor. Miss Lincoln writes with the premise that since she is a woman and from Fall River, she can better understand Lizzie, the woman, than any other writer. She may be right. She has an uncanny ability to take the most innocuous comments made by Lizzie and others and see them for what they really were: clues. This is a good starting place for a Lizzie Borden novice, and a good read for someone who is just curious about the case or just enjoys a good book.

On a stiflingly hot August morning in 1892 Lizzie Borden, of Fall River, Massachusetts, chopped her stepmother to death with an ax. An hour and a half later, she killed her father the same way. Although the story has been told by those least qualified to do so -- outsiders and men. Now, for the first time, this famous American crime is examined by someone with all the proper credentials: Victoria Lincoln is a native of Fall River and thus knows the never-revealed "inside" story of the crime that insular community regarded as its "private disgrace"; she is a woman, and as she convincingly demonstrates, the Borden murders -- and their solution -- can be fully understood only by a fellow woman.Miss Lincoln comes up with startling new findings in her penetrating analysis of the crime. Among them: the hitherto unknown motive for the killings (a secret no one but an inhabitant of Fall River, Massachusetts, ever could possibly disclose); a startling new hypothesis to account for Lizzie's celebrated "peculiar spells" that casts new light on how the crime was committed; and the place where Lizzie hid the dress she was wearing at the time of the murders -- a mystery that has been plaguing criminologists for years.A PRIVATE DISGRACE is far more than a superb book of fact crime; it is a distinguished piece of writing. Victoria Lincoln is a seasoned, best-selling novelist who has a special relationship with her subject: as a child, she not only lived up the street from Lizzie Borden, but knew her personally. Step by step, Miss Lincoln unfolds the background of the crime; she evokes the special mores of the Fall River upper crust who lived "up on the hill"; she painstakingly re-creates the inquest where Lizzie nakedly admitted her guilt and then was saved by a fantastic stroke of luck -- because of a technicality, the damning inquest trial. But Miss Lincoln does not end with Lizzie's celebrated aquittal; she takes the story beyond to her latter days when, as Lizbeth of Maplecroft, Lizzie lived perhaps her strangest life of all.The Borden case is one of the most enduring -- and perplexing -- landmarks in American crime annals. A PRIVATE DISGRACE is bound to be regarded as the classic book on this classic American crime.

I have been interested in Lizzie Borden for 40 years, and have read at least a dozen books on the case. I think this is the best of the lot. If you can find a copy, hard or paper, new or used, you can't go wrong. Read it for entertainment, or for scholarship. Mrs. Lincoln really did this one right.

Exceptionally well-written, informative, and highly entertaining, this book rivals "In Cold Blood" as one of the best true crime books I've ever read. I don't necessarily buy all of the theories presented here, but they are among the most plausible ever presented.

Victoria Lincoln grew up in the same town (Fall River, MA) in which the infamous Borden murders took place. She knew Lizzie and the old Yankee traditions. Her insights, wit, and HARD work writing this book make it the best crime book I have EVER read, and frankly one of the best books, period