'SEE WHAT I HAVE DONE'......LIZZIE BORDEN PERFORMS UNNATURAL AX....

See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt (2017)    Oh man, did we ever want to savor the hell out of this book......we couldn't wait.

           After all, who doesn't want to read yet another novelist's take on Lizzie Borden, the most legendary accused-then-acquitted murder suspect in American history?

           Okay, maybe there's people who don't want to read another one........but the BQ, lover of....we guess you could label it 'Classical Horror', eagerly dove in, smacking our ghoulish lips.....

            We quickly calmed down.

            Overall, the book's a disappointment........not so much a full fledged novel, more of an exquisitely crafted exercise for a graduate thesis in creative writing.

            Much to admire here in some of its artful prose........but little to seriously engage or grip a reader.

             Author Schmidt unfolds the story through multiple narrators.......three of them real (sisters Lizzie and Emma Borden, the house maid Bridget) and a fictitious character 'Benjamin', a menacing thug-for-hire supposedly recruited by the girls' Uncle John to terrorize their father, Andrew Borden, into treating Lizzie and Emma more fairly in family finances.  Like the Bordens, the thug comes equipped with his own sad, emotionally wrenching backstory.....

             And on and on it slowly goes, with the heart of the book gradually emerging as the deeply unnerving love-hate relationship between the two sisters, the needy possessive Lizzie and big sis Emma, who managed, for a time,  to escape the overpowering gloom 'n doom of the Borden household......

              Schmidt literally rubs your nose in the stink, filth and rot of the Borden home, depicting a place that's frequently  a vomit-inducing house of horrors even before Mr. and Mrs. Borden end up decorating the furniture with their blood and chopped up bodies.  (The family's round the clock fare for all three meals consists of a spoiled leg of mutton and its broth......with detailed descriptions of much sloppy chewing and slurping....gagworthy.....)

               And then it ends with a flurry of fancy prose that would no doubt sound great at a reading during a book signing appearance.........but left us with a resigned shrug, wondering why we bothered to pick this book up at all.  Yawn........

               Lizzie may or may not have taken 40 or 41 whacks at Mom 'n Dad......but for this book....sorry, the BQ can only swing 1 & 1/2 whacks (* 1/2)     We had high hopes for the....uh....cutting edge in Borden tales.....but the ax here is dull.