The Red Parts Lib/E: Autobiography of a Trial

Late in 2004, Maggie Nelson received a call from her mother, who announced that the case of Maggie's aunt Jane, who had been murdered thirty-five years before had been reopened; a new suspect would be arrested and tried on the basis of a DNA match. Over the months that followed, Nelson found herself attending the trial with her mother and reflecting anew on the aura of dread and fear that hung over her family and childhood. The Red Parts is a memoir, an account of a trial, and a provocative essay that interrogates the American obsession with violence and missing white women, and that scrupulously explores the nature of grief, justice, and empathy.