The Tragedy of Brinkwater
Apr. 25th, 2024 07:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
castironA few months back, when I was taking advantage of Newspapers.com's free-access weekend to do some genealogy research, I ran across a column of book reviews in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, 2 September 1888. Various books were described as "educational, "charming", "wholesome", etc.
And then there was The Tragedy of Brinkwater by Martha Livingstone Moodey:
"This is a murder story. A woman is accused, with the help of her son, of having murdered her step-son. The story is not a good one, nor is it very well told. Murder stories, to be good, ought to be able to harrow one's feelings—to send, so to speak, cold chills up and down one's back, and to render one altogether very uncomfortable. This story does nothing but bore one."
One-star review from 1888? Of course I had to track it down on Google Books and read it.
TL;DR: Yeah, it's bad. Which is a shame, because there's a potentially good story buried in the Noble Suffering Of Virtuous People.
The summary: When a man is found murdered, his stepmother and half-brother, who he was evicting from his father's home, are considered the obvious suspects. The local sheriff thinks they're innocent but is unable to prove this.
The cast:
* Joseph Farrell, the dead man who totally deserved to be offed
* Agnes Farrell, the stepmother who has no personality other than to be Formerly Rich And Proud and Now Suffering Nobly In Her Despair, and who saw something the night of the murder that made her think Ernest might be guilty
* Ernest Ferrell, the half-brother who has no personality other than to Love His Mother And I Suppose His Fiancée Too and be Suffering Nobly In His Despair
* Samuel Martin, the sheriff, who has a tragic backstory involving a Bad Son, and who when he can't prove Agnes and Ernest's innocence falls severely ill
* Martha Blunt, a loyal servant whose evidence on the witness stand was damning, despite her not meaning it to be
* Virgin Grey, Ernest's fiancée, who is Pure and Upright as well as Loyal, and who decides that she wants to marry Ernest before he's executed
* Artey, Martha Blunt's developmentally disabled son who hangs out in the graveyard and plays with his whistle
* Richard "Dick" Martin, the Bad Son of the sheriff who turns up late in the story, and who his mother Mary hides from the sheriff
The murderer was the sheriff's Bad Son Richard! Who killed Joseph because Joseph had seduced, fake-married, and abandoned the woman Richard loved! Dick confesses to local officials on his deathbed! The news is brought to Agnes and Ernest on the morning they're to be hanged, just after Ernest and Virgin's marriage ceremony!! Agnes is so weakened by her Prison Experience that she dies almost immediately afterward!!!
Yeah, it's disappointing. While the early part of the book involves the sheriff investigating the crime and trying to figure out what happened, he ends up having no part in solving the case due to his illness. And the sheriff is unconscious the whole time his estranged son is hidden in his house and dying; there's no reconciliation or confrontation to make things interesting. There's no depth to the characters; they're cardboard stereotypes or at best ping-pong between two stereotypes (e.g. Agnes going from proud rich widow to saintly self-abnegating prisoner with no transition).
This could have been a really fun melodramatic romp. It ended up being a compelling letdown.
And then there was The Tragedy of Brinkwater by Martha Livingstone Moodey:
"This is a murder story. A woman is accused, with the help of her son, of having murdered her step-son. The story is not a good one, nor is it very well told. Murder stories, to be good, ought to be able to harrow one's feelings—to send, so to speak, cold chills up and down one's back, and to render one altogether very uncomfortable. This story does nothing but bore one."
One-star review from 1888? Of course I had to track it down on Google Books and read it.
TL;DR: Yeah, it's bad. Which is a shame, because there's a potentially good story buried in the Noble Suffering Of Virtuous People.
The summary: When a man is found murdered, his stepmother and half-brother, who he was evicting from his father's home, are considered the obvious suspects. The local sheriff thinks they're innocent but is unable to prove this.
The cast:
* Joseph Farrell, the dead man who totally deserved to be offed
* Agnes Farrell, the stepmother who has no personality other than to be Formerly Rich And Proud and Now Suffering Nobly In Her Despair, and who saw something the night of the murder that made her think Ernest might be guilty
* Ernest Ferrell, the half-brother who has no personality other than to Love His Mother And I Suppose His Fiancée Too and be Suffering Nobly In His Despair
* Samuel Martin, the sheriff, who has a tragic backstory involving a Bad Son, and who when he can't prove Agnes and Ernest's innocence falls severely ill
* Martha Blunt, a loyal servant whose evidence on the witness stand was damning, despite her not meaning it to be
* Virgin Grey, Ernest's fiancée, who is Pure and Upright as well as Loyal, and who decides that she wants to marry Ernest before he's executed
* Artey, Martha Blunt's developmentally disabled son who hangs out in the graveyard and plays with his whistle
* Richard "Dick" Martin, the Bad Son of the sheriff who turns up late in the story, and who his mother Mary hides from the sheriff
The murderer was the sheriff's Bad Son Richard! Who killed Joseph because Joseph had seduced, fake-married, and abandoned the woman Richard loved! Dick confesses to local officials on his deathbed! The news is brought to Agnes and Ernest on the morning they're to be hanged, just after Ernest and Virgin's marriage ceremony!! Agnes is so weakened by her Prison Experience that she dies almost immediately afterward!!!
Yeah, it's disappointing. While the early part of the book involves the sheriff investigating the crime and trying to figure out what happened, he ends up having no part in solving the case due to his illness. And the sheriff is unconscious the whole time his estranged son is hidden in his house and dying; there's no reconciliation or confrontation to make things interesting. There's no depth to the characters; they're cardboard stereotypes or at best ping-pong between two stereotypes (e.g. Agnes going from proud rich widow to saintly self-abnegating prisoner with no transition).
This could have been a really fun melodramatic romp. It ended up being a compelling letdown.