UBC: A Private Disgrace
Lincoln, Victoria. A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden by Daylight. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1967. [library]
After Lizzie Borden: The Legend, the Truth, the Final Chapter , A Private Disgrace was both a wonderful read and a relief.
Victoria Lincoln, like Arnold Brown, was a native of Fall River. More than that, she lived a block away from Lizzie Borden as a child and thus remembers both her and the society that created her. You don't have to agree with Lincoln to find her insights into Fall River's tightly closed upper class community--and its effects on Lizzie Borden--illuminating.
There are odd points at which Brown and Lincoln agree; for instance, they both argue that the judges at Lizzie's trial were horrendously biased. But whereas Brown has this terribly complicated conspiracy theory about how Lizzie was being tried and acquitted to hide the real murderer, Lincoln's theory is much simpler and more plausible: Lizzie's money hired as her defense lawyer an ex-Massachusetts governor who, as it happened, had appointed to the bench the judge who ran the trial. Robinson wanted to win the case, and Judge Dewey was cooperating to the hilt. Lincoln also makes it clear that once the judges disallowed Lizzie's damningly self-contradicting inquest testimony (and the equally damning testimony of the pharmacist who refused to sell her prussic acid), the prosecution's case pretty much fell apart.
Lincoln's theory of Lizzie's guilt is far more persuasive than Brown's theory of her innocence. Lincoln puts the pieces together--including outlying pieces like Lizzie's recurrent kleptomania--into a picture that makes sad and dreadful sense. She may or may not be right (I have no idea if her understanding of temporal lobe epilepsy is still valid or if it's been disproven), but she has made a really excellent effort.
After Lizzie Borden: The Legend, the Truth, the Final Chapter , A Private Disgrace was both a wonderful read and a relief.
Victoria Lincoln, like Arnold Brown, was a native of Fall River. More than that, she lived a block away from Lizzie Borden as a child and thus remembers both her and the society that created her. You don't have to agree with Lincoln to find her insights into Fall River's tightly closed upper class community--and its effects on Lizzie Borden--illuminating.
There are odd points at which Brown and Lincoln agree; for instance, they both argue that the judges at Lizzie's trial were horrendously biased. But whereas Brown has this terribly complicated conspiracy theory about how Lizzie was being tried and acquitted to hide the real murderer, Lincoln's theory is much simpler and more plausible: Lizzie's money hired as her defense lawyer an ex-Massachusetts governor who, as it happened, had appointed to the bench the judge who ran the trial. Robinson wanted to win the case, and Judge Dewey was cooperating to the hilt. Lincoln also makes it clear that once the judges disallowed Lizzie's damningly self-contradicting inquest testimony (and the equally damning testimony of the pharmacist who refused to sell her prussic acid), the prosecution's case pretty much fell apart.
Lincoln's theory of Lizzie's guilt is far more persuasive than Brown's theory of her innocence. Lincoln puts the pieces together--including outlying pieces like Lizzie's recurrent kleptomania--into a picture that makes sad and dreadful sense. She may or may not be right (I have no idea if her understanding of temporal lobe epilepsy is still valid or if it's been disproven), but she has made a really excellent effort.
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