Typically, I would not read a book like The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia by Emma Copley Eisenberg. Titles of books with ‘girls’ (when really, they are women) are going to venture into the exploitation of women under the guise of true crime titillation.
But Eisenberg has subverted and complicated the genre in her work. This is a far more nuanced view of crimes against women. Eisenberg examines her own time in rural West Virginia against the backdrop of the Rainbow murders and comes out the other side with complicated observations and experiences.
Some of her most intense relationships are with the men of the region, and they are often loving and tender. They are also shades of menace. There is real ambiguity in her experiences with the men of West Virginia.
But there is more. Eisenberg shows that violent crime exacts a price on everyone. The biblical writers knew this centuries ago: in Deuteronomy 21 we can read of a rite to be enacted when a body is found in a field. We all feel something is needed when a murder is left unsolved. We should sacrifice a heifer by a creek. We should atone for the murder we cannot solve.
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