The Sinners All Bow

November 1, 2024
Sarah Cornell was barely 30 years old when she died in 1832. The mysterious, brutal circumstances around her death and the uproar that followed intrigued Catharine Williams, a trailblazing reporter and Cornell's fiercest advocate. Today, Cornell's mysterious death intrigues Dawson (All That Is Wicked, 2022), who, in this book's opening pages, describes Williams as her coauthor. Though living centuries apart, both investigators show how Cornell's death reveals societal anxieties around religious upheaval, womens' rights, and industrialization. Dawson uses Williams' tremendous reporting as a starting point, reconstructing her predecessor's investigation into the death and the ensuing trial. Through meticulous detail, readers see the limits of nineteenth-century law and forensic science and how journalism functioned before objectivity became its ethical baseline. Williams' own biases are exposed as Dawson questions the double bind of requiring victims to be perfect in order to elicit an audience's sympathy. Through skepticism, attention to detail, and inventive framing, Dawson offers another compelling entry into the genre of historical true crime.

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Starred review from November 25, 2024
Historian Dawson (American Sherlock) aims in this engrossing account to solve the murder that inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Catherine Read Williams’s Fall River, which was published in 1833 and is claimed by some to be America’s first true crime book. In 1832, pregnant 30-year-old Sarah Maria Cornell was found hanged in the small town of Fall River, Mass. Before she died, Cornell had written a cryptic note urging whoever found it to seek out Methodist minister Ephraim Avery if anything happened to her. Using Williams’s reporting on Avery’s subsequent murder trial and the turmoil it caused among Fall River’s devout residents, Dawson attempts to piece together the truth, speculating about an alleged affair between Avery and Cornell and whether Cornell’s death was suicide or murder. Warring religious sects, wild rumors of promiscuity, and Williams’s own biases all color Dawson’s conclusions, which are more complicated than a simple rebuttal to Avery’s acquittal. Breakneck pacing, a novelist’s gift for scene-setting, and an edifying analysis of the overlap between the Cornell case and Hawthorne’s novel make this a home run. Readers will be rapt. Agent: Jessica Papin, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.

December 1, 2024
A unique retelling of one of America's first true-crime stories. Dawson presents a fascinating approach to the story of Sarah Cornell, the woman whose death is said to have inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne to create Hester Prynne in his 1850 novel, The Scarlet Letter. Dawson draws on the work of Catharine Williams, a poet, journalist, and author who chronicled Cornell's life close to two centuries years ago. Though you won't see Williams' name listed as a co-author, Dawson refers to her as such because of the critical role that her book, Fall River, plays in retelling this story. Dawson uses Williams' work not only as a primary source but as one of the first true-crime books ever written, making this partnership a rich portrayal of Cornell's scandalous story. For example, Dawson demonstrates how Williams used "victimology" long before the term was coined by modern psychologists and forensic investigators. The book also serves as a biography of Williams, and Dawson draws a compelling parallel between the two of them, separated by advancements in feminism, forensic science, and religiosity, but united in their dedication to telling the truth about a woman's mysterious and untimely death. Dawson also highlights how the puritanical environment in which her victim and co-author lived fostered strong biases. The story occasionally drags, lacking the propulsive drive of other true-crime works, but this deliberate pacing lends admirable respect to a story that's often sensationalized. Dawson also places Cornell's death in the context of other gruesome New England crimes, notably that of Lizzie Borden, immersing readers in the chilling atmosphere of the time. Required reading for true-crime aficionados and those fascinated by puritanical New England.

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