I've just finished Bright Young Women with the overwhelming feeling of "it's no wonder women across the world are pissed off", because whilst this book is a phenomenal read, it did leave me absolutely furious.
It's extraordinary and brimming with quiet rage. It is one of those books that I don't think I'll ever forget and one I'll certainly be pushing into the hands of my friends…..
January 1978. Tallahassee. When sorority president Pamela Schumacher is startled awake at 3 a.m. by a strange sound, she's shocked to encounter a scene of implausible violence – two of her friends dead and two others, maimed. Thrust into a terrifying mystery, Pamela becomes entangled in a crime that captivates public interest for more than four decades . . .
On the other side of the country, Tina Cannon has found peace in Seattle after years of hardship. When Ruth, her best friend, goes missing from Lake Sammamish State Park in broad daylight, surrounded by thousands of beachgoers on a beautiful summer day, Tina devotes herself to finding out what happened to her.
When Tina hears about the tragedy in Tallahassee, she suspects the same man the papers refer to is responsible.
It's quite hard to define what Bright Young Women is, I guess if had to force it into a particular category, I'd call it a piece of historical fiction because Jessica Knoll uses the sorority murders in 1970s Florida as the basis for this book.
For those of you who aren't aware of what the sorority murders are, they were carried out by Ted Bundy. He'd escaped from jail in Colorado, made his way to Florida State University, broke into a house where he murdered two women as they slept and attacked two more.
This is the subject of Bright Young Women but what Knoll does is eviscerate every myth you've ever heard about Ted Bundy and my God, is it refreshing.
She refuses to name him throughout the book, referring to him only as 'the defendant'. She rips apart the myth that he was 'always three steps ahead of the law', that he was cunning and clever, instead she holds a magnifying glass up to how stupid he was and how badly various authorities failed women.
Admittedly, my knowledge of 'the defendant' is pretty scant. I know there's been pages and pages written about him. I know there's plenty of films (I believe Zac Efron played him in one recently) and I know there was a weird cult like fan club that surrounded him, there were women who turned up at court like groupies for crying out loud.
I've long had a problem with how serial killers are mythologised, we live in a culture where we give them too much credit. We view them as master manipulators who are always in control – that's always been the narrative surrounding Ted Bundy, I love how Jessica Knoll undoes that and tells a story about women and our experiences.
She makes observations that, as a woman, are all too familiar, it's maddening and heartbreaking at the same time.
"Women got that feeling about him, that funny one we all get when we know something isn't right, but we don't know how to politely extricate ourselves from the situation without escalating the threat of violence or harassment. That is not a skill women are taught, the same way men are not taught that it is okay to leave a woman alone if what she wants is to be left alone."
― Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women
That's our reality. Perhaps we are getting better at helping each other get out of potentially dangerous situations. Still a lot of work to do when it comes to teaching men to back the fuck off though.
What I did find interesting was her choice to tell this story through the eyes of Pamela (whose best friend is one of the sorority victims) and Ruth, a woman who disappeared in broad daylight. They are fictional characters, but the events are real.
Pamela and Tina are desperate to see justice done, they are horrified by what they discover about 'the defendant' and the corruption that allowed him to go on killing. Tina wants to know what happened to Ruth; she wants to know where she is so she can be laid to rest.
Ruth's story is so tragic, she's a young woman who has finally found her freedom. She's escaped her family, is living a life that is true to her and has fallen in love with Tina. It's so sad to read about this woman who's finally comfortable in her own skin, all the while knowing what is going to happen her.
What Knoll succeeds in doing here, is showing readers who the victims were. What their personalities were like, who their friends and family were, what their dreams were. Bright Young Women is about the women behind the headlines, they stop being footnotes in the story of a murderer. 'The Defendant' is no longer viewed as this charming master criminal, Knoll shows him for what he really is, an insecure loser who was threatened by successful women.
This is book is eye-opening, it taught me a lot about the case and the failings that led to the deaths of women and yet despite all that, authorities still treated him with respect, the same couldn't be said for his victims. The judge's final comments were included in this book and that's what really tipped my fury over the edge.
The court finds that both of these killings were indeed heinous, atrocious and cruel. And that they were extremely wicked, shockingly evil, vile and the product of a design to inflict a high degree of pain and utter indifference to human life. This court, independent of, but in agreement with the advisory sentence rendered by the jury does hereby impose the death penalty upon the defendant Theodore Robert Bundy.
Take care of yourself, young man. I say that to you sincerely; take care of yourself. It is an utter tragedy for this court to see such a total waste of humanity, I think, as I've experienced in this courtroom.
You're a bright young man. You'd have made a good lawyer and I would have loved to have you practice in front of me, but you went another way, partner. I don't feel any animosity toward you. I want you to know that. Once again, take care of yourself.
— Judge Edward Cowart
I think the saddest part about this book is that those attitudes still prevail. This may be a story from the 70s but women are still silenced by dangerous men, incompetence means they still get away with it and misogyny is still rampant.
Despite that though, there are people who are determined to put Bright Young Women at the heart of the story.
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