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Spoken in Darkness: Small-Town Murder and a Friendship Beyond Death
The friend of a murdered young woman investigates the events that led this small-town girl into the sordid world of drugs and prostitution and reveals how she came to be the victim of a serial killer.
259 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1900
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
May 16, 2018
So far this book has been kind of a mixed bag to me. I’m about halfway in and I keep waiting for the book to focus more on the victim, Lee rather than the author and her thoughts and feelings. It has yet to touch on how the crime happened or even hint at a serial killer. She could have fallen down a well or committed suicide for all the book has given away. Ok, the books getting better, getting into Lee’s later life and story more now, and the book feels much improved, even though the author is still quite involved, and now dragging her relationship with her mom into it. It’s making more sense to the storyline now at least, as a vehicle to tell the story with, and I can understand better now.
I tend to do the same thing in a way, I usually tie stories into my own life, if an event happens in my home state or especially home county or town, or if I knew someone peripherally. But I’m not sure I’d keep bringing that into a book all of the time if I were an author. Although it’s different writing a book than it is just writing a review of one, of course. So down to the final chapters and I’m hoping to get a positive feeling at the end of how the author works this all out, despite how I know the book does end. Or at least that Lee’s life does prematurely by a trick, I should say. This book is different, for sure...and I suppose it has to be read to be sorted out for oneself. The various killings are covered including Lee’s, but suffice it to say I found the ending pretty unsatisfying, just as real life turns out for so many.
Hatchette Books May 14, 1993
I tend to do the same thing in a way, I usually tie stories into my own life, if an event happens in my home state or especially home county or town, or if I knew someone peripherally. But I’m not sure I’d keep bringing that into a book all of the time if I were an author. Although it’s different writing a book than it is just writing a review of one, of course. So down to the final chapters and I’m hoping to get a positive feeling at the end of how the author works this all out, despite how I know the book does end. Or at least that Lee’s life does prematurely by a trick, I should say. This book is different, for sure...and I suppose it has to be read to be sorted out for oneself. The various killings are covered including Lee’s, but suffice it to say I found the ending pretty unsatisfying, just as real life turns out for so many.
Hatchette Books May 14, 1993
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January 25, 2019Being an Ohioan, who currently lives in one of the cities in Spoken in Darkness, I was intrigued by the premise and what I thought was going to be a true crime novel. Sadly, the book ended up being more memoir than true crime, and another example of what happens when an author's narrative straddles genres rather than blends them seamlessly together.
Imbrie investigates the case of her childhood "best friend," Lee Snavely, to find out what happened to Lee between their time together (7th-9th grades in the 60s in Bowling Green, OH), Lee's disappearance in March 1974 at the age of 24, and the eventual discovery of Lee's body in March 1975.
Come to find out, these "friends" hadn't spoken in several years and hadn't had an active friendship in almost a decade. On top of their questionable connection, Imbrie constantly juxtaposes her life and experiences with Lee's -- when they couldn't have been more different. Quick example? Imbrie, a tenured professor at Vassar; Lee, a working prostitute. So, rather than center Lee and her short life, Imbrie hogs the spotlight with her coming of age and personal woes and (everyday, normal) Mommy and Daddy issues.
Imbrie remarks later in the book that Lee was seen as "another dead prostitute," but Imbrie's scant coverage of Lee and her life lends itself to an equally insidious form of erasure, in my opinion.
The muddle is further exacerbated by Imbrie's fast-and-loose approach with the true crime aspects. She consistently mixes the facts from the case with what she calls "seeing" events. She "sees" what's happening with Lee even though she has no data, evidence or first-person accounts to support her stories. She even admits that she's making things up.
The biggest question I'm left with is why didn't Imbrie interview Taylor? If she genuinely wanted to know what happened to Lee after she disappeared, wouldn't the man she drove off with and who eventually murdered her, be on the interview list?
Recommended only to die-hard true crime readers who are willing to sit through a dull narrative for, at the most, a few astute observations about small-town life and the US justice system. Or, perhaps, someone researching Gary Addison Taylor.
Imbrie investigates the case of her childhood "best friend," Lee Snavely, to find out what happened to Lee between their time together (7th-9th grades in the 60s in Bowling Green, OH), Lee's disappearance in March 1974 at the age of 24, and the eventual discovery of Lee's body in March 1975.
Come to find out, these "friends" hadn't spoken in several years and hadn't had an active friendship in almost a decade. On top of their questionable connection, Imbrie constantly juxtaposes her life and experiences with Lee's -- when they couldn't have been more different. Quick example? Imbrie, a tenured professor at Vassar; Lee, a working prostitute. So, rather than center Lee and her short life, Imbrie hogs the spotlight with her coming of age and personal woes and (everyday, normal) Mommy and Daddy issues.
Imbrie remarks later in the book that Lee was seen as "another dead prostitute," but Imbrie's scant coverage of Lee and her life lends itself to an equally insidious form of erasure, in my opinion.
"I had started two months before with a puzzle I wanted to solve, a story I wanted to tell, vaguely uneasy that the pieces of my memory didn't fit into a coherent picture. That unease focused later on a grim question, to which I thought I could find an answer, the facts, at least, if not the truth. What had happened in Lee's life, that she could have been dead for over a year, and they found her body by accident? A conviction of my difference from her had prompted the question: I would have been found on purpose. Somebody would have been looking for me."So yeah, definitely more memoir than true crime. And an overwritten memoir at that.
The muddle is further exacerbated by Imbrie's fast-and-loose approach with the true crime aspects. She consistently mixes the facts from the case with what she calls "seeing" events. She "sees" what's happening with Lee even though she has no data, evidence or first-person accounts to support her stories. She even admits that she's making things up.
"I've come to much of my story, what I can't know or didn't observe myself, through photographs, which I have learned to read, imaginatively, like a text. A photograph is the next best thing to being there, and the next best thing to a photograph is a good description of one.""I imagine Debbie's life before Lee met her from my sister's reports." Here, I thought, oh, Imbrie's sister knew Debbie and is going to share her recollections. But no. Imbrie uses her own sister's stories about what kids did in her junior high and high school days (you know, totally crazy and wild things likes "driving around the high school parking lot, seeing how fast they could go, then bailing out, opening the doors and jumping...into the gravel, just for kicks.") to replace actual facts from Debbie's life. Imbrie goes on to share, "I'd been in junior high...and I didn't know I knew anybody who had trouble like that." Yet she'd described friends and acquaintances smoking pot, having sex, etc. Inconsistencies in true crime are a pet peeve, but I guess as a memoir, it's okay because memory is fluid.
"...I have no evidence of what happened. It is mine to imagine, what no one can know."A final example of Imbrie's "seeing," pages 241-255 in the last chapter of the book, when she "recounts" Lee's last days which, after Lee's disappearance, no one knows the facts except the killer.
The biggest question I'm left with is why didn't Imbrie interview Taylor? If she genuinely wanted to know what happened to Lee after she disappeared, wouldn't the man she drove off with and who eventually murdered her, be on the interview list?
Recommended only to die-hard true crime readers who are willing to sit through a dull narrative for, at the most, a few astute observations about small-town life and the US justice system. Or, perhaps, someone researching Gary Addison Taylor.
December 6, 2010
This author is exceedingly pretentious. She manages to turn a true crime into an autobiography. She had been close to the victim for about a year, in junior high, so you could expect some shared history. But Ms. Imbrie uses this book as a platform to discus her thoughts on the Vietnam War, her relationship with her mother, her job as a professor of English at Vassar, etc. In one section of the book, rather then just tell us about a portion of the victim's life, she tells us the story of her driving to her parents cabin and telling her mother about that part of the victim's life. When she does talk about the victim so much of what she writes is complete conjecture. I understand that a little artistic license is needed in true crime - maybe the victim thought this, possibly this happened - but she describes in great detail things only the victim or the killer could know. The factual portions of the book are well researched, I'll give her that, but the rest of the book just irritated me.
January 26, 2016
I found this book to be very intriguing and also enlightening. I really felt a connection to this author and her relationship with this friend who had such a tragic life. She touched on her childhood with friends and on to high school which we can all identify with. As she moved on into her later grown-up years, as happens in life where we find our own path and temporarily lose touch with long-time friends, it was rather despairing to read her journey tracking this young friend trying to figure out what happened. It was a heart-breaking end and I felt that too. I commend her brave soul for seeking the truth about a long-lost friend. It is a winner!
January 23, 2016
The story of a girl who grew up to live a very rough life, and her encounter with a little-known serial killer in Irish Hills, Michigan. The author was her childhood friend and tried in this book to make sense of the events.
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August 7, 2011A very good read about a murder in my town.
August 5, 2019
A solid book and a sad read. Does she go on a little too much with the monther-daughter dialogue? Yes. It could use some editing, but I really enjoyed the pace and the discovery of self and of life in this book.
These girls went to the same grade school I went to, 20 years later. A lot of the city and places she described were familiar, which I'm sure helped me relate to the story a bit more.
It's a heartbreaking story of not just a rough life, ending in murder, but of the author coming to terms with her own life and how the girls who were at one time best friends, went completely different paths. I read the book as her therapy, as she was working through the guilt of not staying in touch over the years, and of not knowing what was really going on in another person's life.
The final scene is very difficult, but really powerful.
These girls went to the same grade school I went to, 20 years later. A lot of the city and places she described were familiar, which I'm sure helped me relate to the story a bit more.
It's a heartbreaking story of not just a rough life, ending in murder, but of the author coming to terms with her own life and how the girls who were at one time best friends, went completely different paths. I read the book as her therapy, as she was working through the guilt of not staying in touch over the years, and of not knowing what was really going on in another person's life.
The final scene is very difficult, but really powerful.
May 29, 2024
I just can't finish this book it's so bad. I keep trying, and who's to say I won't try again? I was really intrigued by the true story of a serial murder not from where I live. The author just focuses so much on herself and not at all on anything else.
July 31, 2017
I read this book exclusively because a read an article stating the afghan whigs album black love was inspired by this, or something to that effect.
dnf
December 9, 2024I read a page and could go no farther. I knew it would be too much for me and stopped.
February 18, 2018
http://goo.gl/maps/2Ypqy http://www.toledoblade.com/Deaths/200...
Review I read this book in the early 90s
This book is set in my home town. However, I lived outside of the city limits, so didn't go to city schools. Ann and Lee were older than I and I didn't know either one. I did know Lee's brother, he was a friend of my friend, T's brother. He was living with a family who lived down the road from my house. I do know the house where the Snavely's lived. I think it was the only house I know of with a built-in pool. I remember being fascinated every time my parents drove by, imagining what it would be like to live there. Later the dog kennel was where the pool was. I see on Google Maps it's now a garden area. I can remember riding bicycles past the house and and the dogs would chase if they were loose.
Honestly, I don't remember Lee's murder. I spent my days outside, not watching the news on TV.
It's a friendship of 2 girls who met one summer. One grew up to be a drug addicted, prostitute, one grew up to be a professor of English. One was brutally murdered, one wrote a book about it.
The book was interesting to me because of the home town connection. The county fair, the roller rink, the pharmacy where Lee was employed. Later I found another copy of the book and gave it to a coworker who also had spent a few years of her life in Bowling Green. I'd not know her at that time either.
Reading the book was like a trip home.
Postscript: I just read that Ann died in 2006 https://specialcollections.vassar.edu...
(less)
Review I read this book in the early 90s
This book is set in my home town. However, I lived outside of the city limits, so didn't go to city schools. Ann and Lee were older than I and I didn't know either one. I did know Lee's brother, he was a friend of my friend, T's brother. He was living with a family who lived down the road from my house. I do know the house where the Snavely's lived. I think it was the only house I know of with a built-in pool. I remember being fascinated every time my parents drove by, imagining what it would be like to live there. Later the dog kennel was where the pool was. I see on Google Maps it's now a garden area. I can remember riding bicycles past the house and and the dogs would chase if they were loose.
Honestly, I don't remember Lee's murder. I spent my days outside, not watching the news on TV.
It's a friendship of 2 girls who met one summer. One grew up to be a drug addicted, prostitute, one grew up to be a professor of English. One was brutally murdered, one wrote a book about it.
The book was interesting to me because of the home town connection. The county fair, the roller rink, the pharmacy where Lee was employed. Later I found another copy of the book and gave it to a coworker who also had spent a few years of her life in Bowling Green. I'd not know her at that time either.
Reading the book was like a trip home.
Postscript: I just read that Ann died in 2006 https://specialcollections.vassar.edu...
(less)
November 17, 2017
I read this book in the early 90s
This book is set in my home town. However, I lived outside of the city limits, so didn't go to city schools. Ann and Lee were older than I and I didn't know either one. I did know Lee's brother, he was a friend of my friend, T's brother. He was living with a family who lived down the road from my house. I do know the house where the Snavely's lived. I think it was the only house I know of with a built-in pool. I remember being fascinated every time my parents drove by, imagining what it would be like to live there. Later the dog kennel was where the pool was. I see on Google Maps it's now a garden area. I can remember riding bicycles past the house and and the dogs would chase if they were loose.
Honestly, I don't remember Lee's murder. I spent my days outside, not watching the news on TV.
It's a friendship of 2 girls who met one summer. One grew up to be a drug addicted, prostitute, one grew up to be a professor of English. One was brutally murdered, one wrote a book about it.
The book was interesting to me because of the home town connection. The county fair, the roller rink, the pharmacy where Lee was employed. Later I found another copy of the book and gave it to a coworker who also had spent a few years of her life in Bowling Green. I'd not know her at that time either.
Reading the book was like a trip home.
Postscript: I just read that Ann died in 2006 http://specialcollections.vassar.edu/...
This book is set in my home town. However, I lived outside of the city limits, so didn't go to city schools. Ann and Lee were older than I and I didn't know either one. I did know Lee's brother, he was a friend of my friend, T's brother. He was living with a family who lived down the road from my house. I do know the house where the Snavely's lived. I think it was the only house I know of with a built-in pool. I remember being fascinated every time my parents drove by, imagining what it would be like to live there. Later the dog kennel was where the pool was. I see on Google Maps it's now a garden area. I can remember riding bicycles past the house and and the dogs would chase if they were loose.
Honestly, I don't remember Lee's murder. I spent my days outside, not watching the news on TV.
It's a friendship of 2 girls who met one summer. One grew up to be a drug addicted, prostitute, one grew up to be a professor of English. One was brutally murdered, one wrote a book about it.
The book was interesting to me because of the home town connection. The county fair, the roller rink, the pharmacy where Lee was employed. Later I found another copy of the book and gave it to a coworker who also had spent a few years of her life in Bowling Green. I'd not know her at that time either.
Reading the book was like a trip home.
Postscript: I just read that Ann died in 2006 http://specialcollections.vassar.edu/...
October 27, 2014
Though I've decided to stop reading this at 94 pages, I hesitate to file it under my "disliked books I didn't finish" shelf. Still, I was getting a little bored by the narrative. I wanted to read it mostly because the writing is excellent, taut and descriptive, and because it tells the story of life in the mid-to-late sixties and early seventies, the story of a friendship so strong, in spite of being so brief, the author fought tirelessly to recreate her childhood and learn everything about her friend that she never knew.
I was partially drawn to this memoir because of one I read a few years back that had similar elements to it. That one was called "Girls of Tender Age"; it almost read like fiction but it had a "true life" feel. Part of the reason I feel a little bored by this book is that it's a little bogged down with the author's family. I guess I want to know more about Ann's childhood with Lee, and Lee herself, even as only that recreated version.
I was partially drawn to this memoir because of one I read a few years back that had similar elements to it. That one was called "Girls of Tender Age"; it almost read like fiction but it had a "true life" feel. Part of the reason I feel a little bored by this book is that it's a little bogged down with the author's family. I guess I want to know more about Ann's childhood with Lee, and Lee herself, even as only that recreated version.
September 4, 2008
I just started this book last night and so far it is very good. It is written by a friend of the murdered girl (Lee Snavely), who found out Lee had been murdered through a conversation with her mother who spoke of the murder like she was talking about the weather. I guess the friends had fallen out of touch years before. Right now the book starts out in 1962 when they became friends in junior high school. Highly recommended read so far.
This book was good but it never really goes to far into her friend's murder which I guess was because it was never really investigated so there were no details.
This book was good but it never really goes to far into her friend's murder which I guess was because it was never really investigated so there were no details.
April 18, 2008
Excellent, beautiful, true. An excellent companion novel to Alice Miller's _Thou Shalt Not Be Aware._
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February 10, 2010eh. maybe an explosion happened at the end that made it exciting. i wouldn't know cause i didn't make it to the end.
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