Rabbit Heart

A Mother's Murder, a Daughter's Story

De: Kristine S. Ervin

Narrado por: Hillary Huber

Duración: 10 h y 2 m

Resumen del Editor

A Washington Post “Most Anticipated” Book of the Year • A New York Times “Must Read”

For readers of My Dark Places and The Fact of a Body, a beautiful, brutal memoir documenting one woman’s search for identity alongside her family's decades-long quest to identify the two men who abducted—and murdered—her mother

"This graceful resulting memoir wrestles with failures of justice; the nuances of gendered violence; and the difficulty of making do when we are not whole."—Elle

Kristine S. Ervin was just eight years old when her mother, Kathy Sue Engle, was abducted from an Oklahoma mall parking lot and violently murdered in an oil field. First, there was grief. Then the desire to know: what happened to her, what she felt in her last terrible moments, and all she was before these acts of violence defined her life.

In her mother’s absence, Ervin tries to reconstruct a woman she can never fully grasp—from her own memory, from letters she uncovers, and from the stories of other family members. As more information about her mother's death comes to light, Ervin’s drive to know her mother only intensifies, winding into her own fraught adolescence. She reckons with contradictions of what a woman is allowed to be—a self beyond the roles of wife, mother, daughter, victim—what a “true” victim is supposed to look like, and, finally, how complicated and elusive justice can be.

Told fearlessly and poetically, Rabbit Heart weaves together themes of power, gender, and justice into a manifesto of grief and reclamation: our stories do not need to be simple to be true, and there is power in the telling.

©2024 Kristine S. Ervin (P)2024 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"The author’s investigations of the concept of victimhood are insightful and urgent . . . Ervin laces the poetic text with unforgettable moments of startling, shattering honesty, many of which feel impossible to witness. This is the genius of the author’s prose and what makes this book remarkable: Ervin’s unflinchingly brutal gaze, combined with her insistence on facing the worst parts of her past, make it equally impossible for us to look away."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Poet and essayist Ervin grapples in her moving debut memoir with the emotional damage caused by a parent’s violent death . . . In lucid prose, Ervin unflinchingly documents her grief and untangles how her mother’s murder impacted myriad aspects of her life. This will haunt readers long after they’ve turned the last page."—Publishers Weekly

“There are some books that are written to avoid the brutality of the world and other books that capture with an uncanny clarity the inescapable truth. Kristine S. Ervin froze me in my tracks from the first page of her startling and transfixing memoir, a work fueled by a daughter’s undying love for her mother and a refusal to stay silent about violence. Rabbit Heart will stay with me forever.”—Michele Filgate, editor of What My Mother and I Don't Talk About

Powerful and Necessary

This is a necessary read for men. Period.

Read. To. The. Very. End.

Otherwise it will feel incomplete.

Mixed Experience

Ms. Ervin took risks in telling her story. I am sorry for the horrific, violent murder of her mother! I don’t underestimate what it might’ve taken to share such a personal story. I regret to say, it wasn’t the listen I hoped for. there were definitely some strengths but there was a fragmented quality to the narrative. I don’t know if that was intentional, it might’ve been a way to convey the quality of trauma. Also, that quality of fragmentation could be a way to show that some thing about the author’s mother was always out of reach. This is a moment in time when I receive information about the power of women differently than I did before the Dobbs Decision. I just didn’t find it to be paced with the reader in mind. There was a great deal of disclosure in the book. The listener gets insight into some very personal situations and painful ones at that. Still, disclosure and intimacy aren’t synonymous. The book conflates those conflates those qualities.

Well written interesting story

I bought this because I love memoir and live in the same town as the university the author teaches at. You can tell she is an English professor as it is well written. I appreciated the honesty and the story was interesting. My only critique is that it was repetitive at points. Worthwhile listen.

Groundbreaking

I was drawn to the book, as my own mother was a victim of a vicious attack in 1965 (never solved). Consequently she died an untimely death when I was a teenager. I am now in my 70’s and play and replay scenes of my childhood. I was very surprised at the many parallels of this story and my own life. It took unbelievable courage to write a book like this. The author gave a voice to something that few can speak about. I really appreciate this book.

Generational Trauma, Unpacked

This book is a tough listen. The author’s mother’s death is the starting point but it’s how that death reverberates through her family that is the more harrowing read.

Hard to finish

I felt the author did a very good job describing the life of the family and especially her mother before the mother was murdered when the author was eight years old. Her telling of the experience of getting the news and trying to absorb it is well done and vivid. She conveys the efforts of a child to integrate a shattered reality and move forward without the support and guidance of a loving mother. My problem with the book began with the author's adolescence which (in my opinion) is described primarily in terms of her sexuality and how she based her self-worth on these experiences. Obviously, this is an important and challenging time in anyone's life, but I hoped for a broader view of her life beyond the men she knew. This may be the primary way the author remembers those years, but I felt the reader's experience was not considered. It's a long segment of the book and it is told with tunnel vision. From this point on, the book lagged and was very repetitious, which is a shame because in earlier pages the author keeps the book moving forward in a vivid way. Another (to me, fatal) problem is that the author becomes virtually narcissistic in describing her adult years and I found myself not wanting to spend any more time in her "company". Oddly, there are countless references to her Ph.D., and events are placed in time by where she was in the timeline of getting it. I have the same degree and don't refer to it gratuitously...what would be the point? One or two mentions would have been fine, but she apparently wants the reader to see her in a certain way and leaves nothing to chance.
When, after twenty years of suffering, the murderer is finally arrested, the family is expected to make some sort of statement to the press. The author opines that because she has a Ph.D. (that again) and has years of experience teaching creative writing she should write and deliver the statement. Father and brother agree, ok, she can write the statement. Her brother (who has become a judge, no slouch!) is not expected to read it because he becomes emotional when speaking of the loss of his mother. Author believes her father should also be excused because SHE is writing the statement, they are her words, and they belong to her! Her father, whom she describes as old and getting frail, firmly says that "in the interest of patriarchy" he will read the statement. The author is livid, it is just another example of a man taking her work, her words, her feelings away from her. (This is a theme also when she writes of her feelings about the men who kidnapped and killed her mother, and of the men who have sexually assaulted her.) Her father prevails (I suspect he may have meant to say "patrimony" but that wouldn't have been much better). He reads the author's words to the press and she reports that he did not do a good job. He paused when he shouldn't have and his delivery could have been much smoother. She again refers to the years she has spent speaking to classes of students and believes she should have been the choice to speak for the family. At this point, I thought "this woman needed therapy years ago", and felt that I was lost on a sea of narcissism. My caring for the author and the horrible gash that was made in her life at such a tender age, and admiration for her ability to beautifully convey sensations, experiences, and emotions came to an end at this point. I believe this book needed a major editing. It's understandable that a trauma victim will focus at length on the sequelae of a terrible wounding. But the reader of a memoir is owed a well-edited book about a person they can care about and spend hours with. That person certainly doesn't need to be perfect, but it is painful to experience many hours with a person stuck to this degree. We always hope for some growth and insight.
Having said all this, Hillary Huber did a terrific job reading this book. I will certainly look for more books she has narrated.

The best part of this book is the title

She hates men and is incapable of digesting anyone else’s opinions or feelings. The end.