The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir
Written by Alex Marzano-Lesnevich
Narrated by Alex Marzano-Lesnevich
4/5
()
About this audiobook
"This book is a marvel. The Fact of a Body is equal parts gripping and haunting and will leave you questioning whether any one story can hold the full truth." -- Celeste Ng, author of the New York Times bestselling Everything I Never Told You
Before Alex Marzano-Lesnevich begins a summer job at a law firm in Louisiana, working to help defend men accused of murder, they think their position is clear. The child of two lawyers, Alex is staunchly anti-death penalty. But the moment convicted murderer Ricky Langley’s face flashes on the screen as Alex reviews old tapes—the moment they hear him speak of his crimes—they are overcome with the feeling of wanting him to die. Shocked by their reaction, Alex digs deeper and deeper into the case. Despite their vastly different circumstances, something in Langley's story is unsettlingly, uncannily familiar.
Crime, even the darkest and most unsayable acts, can happen to any one of us. As Alex pores over the facts of the murder, they find themself thrust into the complicated narrative of Ricky’s childhood. And by examining the details of Ricky’s case, Alex is forced to face their own story, to unearth long-buried family secrets, and reckon with a past that colors their view of Ricky's crime.
But another surprise awaits: Alex wasn’t the only one who saw their life in Ricky’s.
An intellectual and emotional thriller that is also a different kind of murder mystery, THE FACT OF A BODY is an audiobook not only about how the story of one crime was constructed -- but about how we grapple with our own personal histories. Along the way it tackles questions about the nature of forgiveness, and if a single narrative can ever really contain something as definitive as the truth. This groundbreaking, heart-stopping work, ten years in the making, shows how the law is more personal than we would like to believe -- and the truth more complicated, and powerful, than we could ever imagine.
This program is read by the author.
Alex Marzano-Lesnevich
A 2014 National Endowment for the Arts fellow, Alex Marzano-Lesnevich has received a Rona Jaffe Award and has twice been a fellow at both MacDowell and Yaddo. Their essays appear in the New York Times, Oxford American, and the anthologies TRUE CRIME and WAVEFORM: Twenty-first Century Essays by Women, as well as many other publications. They received their JD from Harvard, their MFA at Emerson College, and their BA from Columbia University. They now live in Boston, where they teach at Grub Street and in the graduate public policy program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Related to The Fact of a Body
Related audiobooks
My Brother the Killer: A Family Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5After the Eclipse: A Mother's Murder, a Daughter's Search Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You All Grow Up and Leave Me: A Memoir of Teenage Obsession Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Deliver Us: Three Decades of Murder and Redemption in the Infamous I-45/Texas Killing Fields Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfect Suburb Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Kill Jar: Obsession, Descent, and a Hunt for Detroit's Most Notorious Serial Killer Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Uninnocent: Notes on Violence and Mercy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mars Room: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts: Murder and Memory in an American City Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anatomy of Desire: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Life Among the Serial Killers: Inside the Minds of the World's Most Notorious Murderers Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Spider and the Fly: A Reporter, a Serial Killer, and the Meaning of Murder Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil You Know: Stories of Human Cruelty and Compassion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inferno: A Memoir of Motherhood and Madness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Babysitter: My Summers with a Serial Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Parkland: Birth of a Movement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unmasked: My Life Solving America's Cold Cases Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Pale-Faced Lie: A True Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Nearly Normal Family: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stay Sexy & Don't Get Murdered: The Definitive How-To Guide Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Is Rape a Crime?: A Memoir, an Investigation, and a Manifesto Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Miracle Creek: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hollywood Park: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Murder For You
Unanswered Cries: A True Story of Friends, Neighbors, and Murder in a Small Town Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Little Secret: The True Story of a Teenage Killer and the Silence of a Small New England Town Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Conviction: The Untold Story of Putting Jodi Arias Behind Bars Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5After Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dark Heart: A True Story of Greed, Murder, and an Unlikely Investigator Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Doomsday Mother: Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and the End of an American Family Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Shoes: The Sensational Depression-Era Murders That Became My Family's Secret Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Laci: Inside the Laci Peterson Murder Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5While Idaho Slept: The Hunt for Answers in the Murders of Four College Students Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Obsession: The FBI's Legendary Profiler Probes the Psyches of Killers, Rapists, and Stalkers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ghosts That Haunt Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maniac: The Bath School Disaster and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Written in Bone: Hidden Stories in What We Leave Behind Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The I-5 Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To the Bridge: A True Story of Motherhood and Murder Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Rip in Heaven Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Murderer Next Door: Why the Mind Is Designed to Kill Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the Name of the Children: An FBI Agent's Relentless Pursuit of the Nation's Worst Predators Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Deliberate Cruelty: Truman Capote, the Millionaire's Wife, and the Murder of the Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Angel Makers: Arsenic, a Midwife, and Modern History’s Most Astonishing Murder Ring Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stranger Beside Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Fact of a Body
61 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Amazing story, very emotional and well written. Seamlessly blends the tragedy of two stories together.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Jew el ree. So much human suffering. So much pain.