Waverly Place

by Susan Brownmiller

Inspired by the notorious Lisa Steinberg case, this novel follows a couple as they descend into a nightmarish reality of child abuse and the society that quietly tolerates it

Genres: Fiction, True Crime, New York, Novels

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Susan Brownmiller was an American journalist, author and feminist activist best known for her 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, which was selected by The New York Public Library as one of the 100 most important books of the 20th century.

Reviews

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has an absolutely daft cover design, one that gives the impression it's one of those awful dour doorstops that used to be so fashionable wherein the rich and privileged bonk and snort their way through 500 pages. Waverly Place is, rather, a grim portrait of an abusive relationship whose course runs through to a child's tragic death.

What makes it all the grimmer is that Brownmiller describes that destination in the first few pages of the book, then backtracks to the beginning of the relationship between submissive Judith and arrogant, violent, morally bereft Barry; for the rest of the book we follow the course of events knowing that where we're heading is towards a train wreck.

If Brownmiller were a less good writer it would be all too easy to put this book aside as too depressing. However, through the use of countless, often quite short chronological snippets, some of them in Judith's first-person narrative but most of them not, she pulls us right into the tale and refuses to let us go. This choppiness of narrative -- there are no formal chapters -- is extraordinarily effective, not just in grabbing and holding the attention but also in giving the proceedings a tremendous sense of realism.

Not everything is bleak. Brownmiller finds time for some quite sharp yet also affectionate social satire, especially among Judith's colleagues at the publishing house where she works for a while before the frequent beatings and mental abuse make her unemployable, and there are other moments of comedy. Overall, though, this is not a book to be undertaken lightly; it's certainly a book that merits reading.

[Dawn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I took an interest in this book because it's a novel based on the real life murder of Lisa Steinberg by Joel Steinberg and Hedda Nussbaum. Six year old Lisa died in 1987 due to severe abuse and neglect by her adoptive parents. Most of us of a certain age remember the media coverage of this case. Steinberg served a short sentence, and Nussbaum got off scott free.

I recently read the nonfiction book 'What Lisa Knew: The Truth and Lies of the Steinberg Case' by Joyce Johnson. I could never quite get a handle on these people. Steinberg is a lawyer, Nussbaum an author of children's books. It seems they both abused drugs, and had some degree of mental illness, how much depends on who is telling the story. I suppose because the only people who really know what happened can't or won't tell the truth, the reality of the case is elusive to me. We know Lisa died and her parents were responsible, but it's not clear to me how this point was reached.

Although Brownmiller states in the preface that her book is fiction, and only loosely based on this case, I still hoped for some insight. Why did the couple stay together, and why did she tolerate his abuse of her? How could the abuse of the woman and the child go on for so long with no intervention? I can't say I really gained much from the novel. I had a hard time buying into the scenario as presented in the book. Some of that was no doubt due to its brevity. A lot of years were covered in relatively few pages.

I can't recommend this book either to true crime fans, or to someone just looking for a good read.

[RickyB · Rating 3 out of 5]

[This review has spoilers]
I really don't know what to rate this book. It was a compelling read but the subject matter was hard to stomach and even harder to understand. I know this novel is loosely based on true events but I'm just looking at the book as a stand-alone novel because I don't know much about the case it's referring to.
I had no sympathy at all for the battered woman and read nothing at all that made me understand why she would stay in such a relationship. The male character, Barry, was a pig. Every single character in the book saw through him except for Judith? That alone made this woman look like an idiot.
The one character in the book who really touched me was the daughter, Melinda. It was a sad insight into the life of a child in a hostile household and I can barely stand to think that the little girl who, in real life, died in her adopted parents' care had to live like this.
Reading Waverley Place made me curious about the real events but I don't think I could stomach reading about the real thing.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was such a hard story to stomach...to say I liked it would be a crime. A story based on true events involving, abuse, neglect, the death of a child...it was hard to stomach. But a true and sad account on domestic violence that occurs more often than we want to admit. The writing was simple, to the point. It has very graphic images, recommended not for the light of heart or soul.

[Callie · Rating 4 out of 5]

One never knows what goes on behind closed doors. It kinda touched home with me, but that's another story in itself. Might be why I chose it (many years ago, and I'm just now starting to catch up with my backlog of books to read).

This is a fictional account of a tragic story that should have been prevented. At the same time during that time period we didn't have as many safeguards in place as we do now and things like this fell through the cracks all the time. It also seems like the ball was dropped many times because the abuser was very gifted at wearing the mask "Mr. Wonderful" at the right times, with the right people. Sadly, there were people who tied to help, but just couldn't get through the abused or the system to make a difference in the life of the innocent child that became collateral damage.

This fictional account gives the reader a path that "might" have happened, but without being there one can never really know. The depiction of the abused and how hard, and how well she hid the abuse and protected her abuser shows how much research was done to make this such an accurate portrayal. Abusers always know the right buttons to push, the right way to hide things to force the abused to keep silent, not only out of fear of retaliation, but becoming the accused or told they must have asked for it/deserved it. If you speak out against the abuser you're the problem, if you keep silent - you're the problem. If you can't find a way out - you're the problem. Society has over and over again blamed the victim to the point many victims feel they only can be silent. Which brings me to the author's notes at the end.

Her notes and views are surprising because you don't really get her feelings or perspective of the situation until she speaks of it at that point which shows how good of a writer she is/was. Seeing things from her perspective was insightful, but I'm still not entirely sure I would also blame the victim in this case. Yes, the child is the one who died and not her, but could she really have escaped? In a sense by the time the child has arrived didn't she already have a type of Stockholm syndrome. No, she wasn't a hostage in the sense of him forcibly taking her, but she became a hostage to her situation and then years and years of the abuse and following "dream time". It's one thing to function in society or rather pretend to do so, but then maybe you don't know how to escape the hell and terror of your private life. Then again, I wasn't there and the majority of this takes place before I'm old enough to know/understand about worldly events. Still, it is the blame the victim mindset and we need to change that.

I wish more research would have been done into the actual events, but understand that for whatever reason the author chose to spin a tale, not unlike many of the made-for-TV stuff on Lifetime now in 2023.

[Mps · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't say that I loved this book (it's too dark of a story), but I have to give it 4 stars. Susan Brownmiller is clearly a skilled author. I thoroughly enjoyed her writing style and how she broke down the story into clips from different times rather than by chapters, and most of the time I had a hard time putting this book down because it was so compelling. At other times I had to set the book down because the knowledge that this was based on a true story made me want to cry. Though the book is fiction, it is based on truth - reading a couple of news articles about the actual case made it obvious this book wasn't out of the realm of possibility.
This book is a quick read, and I do recommend it, but with a huge caution that it is very heavy. The author sets the book up well - if you have trouble getting through the tragic events in the first few pages, the book does not get any easier from there.

[Ray Quirolgico · Rating 2 out of 5]

The format of storytelling in this book is very familiar now: multiple perspectives of characters who interacted with the main ones in the story (which is all imagined fiction constructed around one true crime incident). Being a native New Yorker, appreciated the fleeting glimpses and memories of Manhattan that the book offers, but ultimately I was left wanting a lot more - about the actual basis for this novel and some kind of more connected resolution to all the various threads. So the structure and the thrust of the book just felt elusive and not very satisfying to me.

[Arlene Richards · Rating 3 out of 5]

A story about battery and child abuse.

[Sioux · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book over 20 years ago and it had haunted me ever since. Tread carefully as it’s heavy going but so compelling.

[Tan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was interested in what happened to the people in this based on truth story. Unfortunately it was terribly written and hard to follow.

[mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

i picked up this book at the beach when i didn't have anything else with me to read. i finished it the next night, after staying up until 1 a.m. to get to the end! wonderful book. i'd never heard of brownmiller, but now i definitely want to read her other works, which are mostly nonfiction. i liked the format, as well. i only wish we had more info as to what happened to the people, maybe like a sequel or something!

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 1 out of 5]

This novel was garbage.

[Gina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely a hard story to stomach, but a great account of Hedda Nussbaum's story. Very sad.

[Jackie Simons]

Read 8/95

[Louisa B Roberts]

This was my first ever english novel I could not put down and would love to read it again via pdf.....what an amazing book....first read was 1997