Book
The simple art of killing a woman
Record details
- ISBN: 9781632063465 (paperback)
-
Physical Description:
254 pages : map ; 21 cm
regular print
print - Edition: First Restless Books paperback edition.
- Publisher: New York : Restless Books, [2023]
- Copyright: ©2023
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Brazil -- Fiction Murder -- Fiction Women -- Crimes against -- Fiction Women lawyers -- Fiction |
Available copies
- 4 of 6 copies available at BC Interlibrary Connect. (Show)
- 1 of 1 copy available at Fernie Heritage Library.
Holds
- 1 current hold with 6 total copies.
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fernie Heritage Library | FIC MEL (Text) | 35136000527425 | Adult Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2024 January #1
An unnamed São Paulo attorney heads to far-flung Acre in western Brazil to document the region's femicides for an initiative to classify the murders as an epidemic. Her colleagues don't know her intimate connection to the work: she is haunted by memories of her father murdering her mother, and was recently assaulted by her ex, Amir. In Acre, she follows the case of Txupira, a 14-year-old Indigenous Ch'aska girl who was kidnapped, raped, and murdered by a trio of local golden boys who are later acquitted. But the protagonist has photographed their defense attorney's secret meeting with jurors, and shares the pictures with Carla, the prosecutor, and Rita, a reporter covering the case. Hounded by increasingly disturbing texts from Amir and the looming menace of the young killers' supporters, she, Carla, and Rita risk their lives to vindicate Txupira and indict the caste system that marginalizes Indigenous Brazilians. Melo's thoughtful first-person narrative and starkly powerful verse interwoven with reports of murdered women fluidly bears the weight of a gripping crime story and fearless social commentary. Copyright 2024 Booklist Reviews. - ForeWord Magazine Reviews : ForeWord Magazine Reviews 2024 - January/February
A Brazilian lawyer is reminded that intimacy is perilous in PatrÃcia Melo's searing novel The Simple Art of Killing a Woman.
While researching fatal crimes against women, a lawyer lists the varying slights that caused men to kill their partners, daughters, and neighbors: they were full of themselves, they disobeyed, they chose the wrong outfits. There were unapproved looks at parties; there were career advances that made their husbands feel lesser. It doesn't take much to push a violent man over the edge, she notes. And no one knows this better than the lawyer herself: her father murdered her mother; her once trusted partner just crossed the line into violence.
Fleeing toward the Amazon, where she experiments with ayahuasca and records the trial of three men accused of the vicious murder of an Indigenous teenager, the lawyer notes that, for women and girls, safety is always illusory at best. "The first thing you learn when you dive into the world of femicide," she says, "is that dark streets, deserted alleys, and dodgy neighborhoods are not genuinely dangerous places for us. The truth is that there's nowhere more perilous than our own homes."
Between chapters appear the death records of murdered women, whose killers make transparent excuses for their executions. These interludes are brief and laid out like poems; they drive home their stark realities with brutal clarity. And they are a discomfiting fit with the lawyer's fevered forays into her buried memories of the night that taught her, better than any investigation could, to draw a hard line at the first sign of danger.
Women rise defiant against misogynistic forces in the truth-filled novel The Simple Art of Killing a Woman. While the dead cannot be resurrected, lives might be spared with knowledgeâand via feminist alliances.
© 2023 Foreword Magazine, Inc. All Rights Reserved. - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2023 October #2
A Brazilian lawyer bears witness to the flaws in her country's justice system, especially regarding the murder of Indigenous women. The young, unnamed narrator has traveled to a remote Amazonian border town to participate in a research project for her firm, taking notes on the trials of men accused of killing Indigenous women. The trip is well-timed as her lover, Amir, has turned abusive, and she is acutely aware of how abuse escalates; her own mother was killed by her father when she was a child. From a distance, she is more able to contemplate these experiences as part of a larger pattern of abuse and femicide in Brazil. Three wealthy young men are on trial for the gruesome rape and murder of Txupira, a 14-year-old Indigenous girl. The narrator witnesses the defense attorney meeting with three jurors in the middle of the night during the trial, and after this proof of corruption is publicized in the newspapers, the editor dies under suspicious circumstances. A friend introduces her to his mother's Indigenous community, which welcomes her and helps her recall more details of the night her mother died. Each chapter begins with the description of a woman being murdered by a man in her life as part of the research notebook the narrator is assembling, and as the violence continues, she decides to fight back by publishing the stories. Brazilian author Melo weaves together crime, magical realism, mythology, and social criticism in this relevant and urgent translation from the Portuguese by Lewis. Though the subject is horrifying, especially in the details about marred and dismembered victims, the narrator's voice is captivating and compelling, offering strength and purpose rather than despair. A deeply affecting novel illuminating the costs of being a woman in a dangerous, misogynistic society. Copyright Kirkus 2023 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.
