The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial

This is not a true crime book in the general sense. It's a memoir of a woman dealing with the family trauma of a murder trial. The murder itself is far removed in time, the author never met the victim, who would have been her aunt. Still, it's gripping stuff. Incredibly well-written, moving, terrifying, lyrical. I'm glad I read it, and am not sure that any other book will be as satisfying for a while after this.

In late 2004, a Michigan man whose only previous conviction was for a forged prescription was charged with the murder of woman who was thought to be a victim of serial killer John Norman Collins. Collins murder spree occurred in the late sixties. Almsot forty years later, old ghosts were dug up at a courthouse in Ann Arbor. The Red Parts is the story of Collins case revisited, but focuses on the one murder that never really fit with the rest. Jane Mixer was not raped. She was not stabbed or dumped in a secluded area. All of John Collins victims fit that M.O. She was shot in the head once to kill her, shot again in the head and then strangled. Her body was then dumped in The Denton Road Cemetery off of Michigan Avenue, four miles outside Ypsilanti.Author Maggie Nelson is the niece of Jane Mixer. She recalls as a child picking up a book called The Michigan Murders and looking for information on the aunt she never met. Years later, as an adult, she would go through her aunt's journals and discover what she was really like, no longer just the victim of a famous serial killer. This would lead to a book called Jane: A Murder, published in 2004. That same year, on the eve of it's publication she would get a phone call from an Ypsi detective saying "Your aunt's case is moving forward." After all this time, they had a suspect who was not John Norman Collins.The rest of the book is the personal story of Nelson's life around the time of the trial of Gary Leiterman, the man who eventually was convicted of her aunt's murder. It reminded me more of a book like Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar than a true crime book like The Michigan Murders. It's not just the facts, but more of a reflection on life, death, and justice. Nelson says she developed a "murder mind," an obsession with death and serial killers while researching Jane. The title has to do with the parts of the bible where Jesus spoke, which are often printed in red ink. When Nelson hears that term for the first time she immediately thinks of a disemboweled body, a symptom of her "murder mind."Overall the book is very well written and even if you have no interest in the case it's a good read. As I followed the case as it developed in 2004, it's especially interesting to read about it from an insider perspective. She describes the difficulty of seeing her aunt's autopsy photos with her family, as well as her relationship with the detectives, and Jane Mixer's college boyfriend. The death of Nelson's aunt affected her family not only for her mother's and grandparent's generation, but for her's as well, even though she wasn't even born when it occurred. The Michigan Murders happened forty years ago, and they still haunt Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor.If you have read The Michigan Murders, this book is probably as good a sequel and we can expect to get. It is perhaps the last twist of Michigan's most famous murder spree. The Mixer case itself is one of the most bizarre murder cases I have ever read about.

A stunning piece of writing . A powerful and deeply personal memoir that expound the grief of a family after a horrific act of violence. I like that God is present in the story and that the author doesn't sugar coat the horrific violence and how it effect not only the victim but those associated with the victim. There. Are a lot of chilling moments in this book told from a person that doesn't mince words. It is a fearless look at violence and its aftermath. This is a good read.

I think part of my problem with this book is that the blurb lead me to believe it was something else than what it intends to be, but part is the book itself. I first heard of this book in a review of Michigan Murders or Terror in Ypsilanti. That reviewer suggested it was another angle on the same events (at least one of them), but in the same true crime non fiction way. The blurb backs this up. It is the story of the trial decades later by the niece that never knew Jane Mixer, the not John Norman Collins victim killed amidst the series that long ago summer. Instead, this is some weird personal journey intermixed sometimes with the trial. There are literary quotes mixed in and they just seem to say look I'm literate despite being royally screwed up in the head. There is not meat to this story. I don't really know anything I didn't about the trial or the feelings of the Mixer family. So many unanswered questions. But, I don't think they were meant to be answered so I don't give this book a one. But even still it was a hodge podge of bad decisions, strange visions, personal loss and sometimes the trial.

I read Jane: A Murder, before I read this. While it isn't absolutely necessary too, I believe you should! You are already immersed in the story when you learn the ending. While the story will never end for the family, a sense of closure is found in no longer wondering. Fabulous blend of past, present, poetry and journal entries.

The Red Parts is, on top of everything, a very original book. Built on a family tragedy (the killing of the aunt of the author, before she was even born), the book has the backdrop of an improbable (but true) trial, trying to find the killer of Jane 36 years after the murder. With that, Maggie Nelson reflects on the long lasting impact some events have on a personal and family level, the transgenerational trauma and her own traumas derived from the hazards and challenges of her nuclear family life. The story is compelling, very well written, with a focus on the omnipresence of death and of view: she even describes photographs from the autopsy and the finding of the body, but refrains to show them in the book. As a reader, I was moved by Maggie Nelson’s profound sensitivity and her “defense” strategy: she shows feeling, but (to paraphrase Vivian Gornick), we know her through a transparent membrane: we can see, but we can’t touch. It seems as if even the deepest insight on one’s past and present is always elusive.

Beautifully and fiercely written. I read this in one sitting, and will read it again, this time to better savor the insights and the prose. This was my introduction to Nelson and I'm now eager to seek out her other work.

i loved this book even though the subject matter was dark. partly it was because i identified so strongly with how her mind seemed to be processing the past and the present.if you are looking to read a straightforward true crime then this isnt for you. it has a very simular feel to "the fact of a body " in that its a multilayered inquiry into tragedy and how it resonates throughout the lives of the people involved within it.she captures so well how these things can unroot us from the ground we stand upon. my favourite quote reflecting this is "a dark crescent of land, where suffering is essentially meaningless, where the present collapses into the past without warning..............where grief lasts forever and its force never fades"

This is a unique look at the attendance at a trial from a family member of a woman who was murdered 35 years earlier. Interesting read

Love Maggie Nelson’s work and this personal and deeply felt memoir is one I’ll return to. Deepened by reading the poetry companion book Jane.

I much prefer Ms Nelson's JANE, her earlier book about her aunt Jane's murder. I was disappointed with The Red Parts as it is so intellectual and less about the heart. That said, Ms Nelson is a wonderful writer and I would recommend anything that she puts pen to.

In 1969 Nelson's Aunt Jane was brutally murdered and little progress was made on the case. Then in 2004 Nelson's mother was told that a suspect was in custody. Nelson's book follows the case from this point through to the suspect's trial. Her book is not a dry or sensationalist true crime narrative rather it is a thoughtful, beautifully written set of meditations on the loss of her aunt, the impact on her family, grief and the ways in which the formal justice system can or cannot address these things. The more of Nelson's work I've read the more impressed by her I am, an excellent piece.