NATIONAL BESTSELLERNamed One of The Best Books of 2020 by NPR’s Fresh Air * Publishers Weekly * MarieClaire.com * RedbookA Recommended Book by The New York Times * The Washington Post * Publisher’s Weekly * Kirkus Reviews* Booklist * The Boston Globe * Goodreads * Buzzfeed * Town & Country * Refinery29 * BookRiot * CrimeReads * Glamour * Popsugar * PureWow * ShondalandDive into a “tour de … Shondaland
Dive into a “tour de force of investigative reporting” (Ron Chernow): a “searching, atmospheric and ultimately entrancing” (Patrick Radden Keefe) true crime narrative of an unsolved 1969 murder at Harvard and an “exhilarating and seductive” (Ariel Levy) narrative of obsession and love for a girl who dreamt of rising among men.
You have to remember, he reminded me, that Harvard is older than the U.S. government. You have to remember because Harvard doesn’t let you forget.
1969: the height of counterculture and the year universities would seek to curb the unruly spectacle of student protest; the winter that Harvard University would begin the tumultuous process of merging with Radcliffe, its all-female sister school; and the year that Jane Britton, an ambitious twenty-three-year-old graduate student in Harvard’s Anthropology Department and daughter of Radcliffe Vice President J. Boyd Britton, would be found bludgeoned to death in her Cambridge, Massachusetts apartment. Forty years later, Becky Cooper a curious undergrad, will hear the first whispers of the story. In the first telling the body was nameless. The story was this: a Harvard student had had an affair with her professor, and the professor had murdered her in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology because she’d threatened to talk about the affair. Though the rumor proves false, the story that unfolds, one that Cooper will follow for ten years, is even more complex: a tale of gender inequality in academia, a ‘cowboy culture’ among empowered male elites, the silencing effect of institutions, and our compulsion to rewrite the stories of female victims. We Keep the Dead Close is a memoir of mirrors, misogyny, and murder. It is at once a rumination on the violence and oppression that rules our revered institutions, a ghost story reflecting one young woman’s past onto another’s present, and a love story for a girl who was lost to history.
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I don’t usually read true crime, but I want to thank @aepstone for this recommendation! I absolutely tore through this book and stayed up three nights in a row until around 2 or 3 am to do so. Cooper’s book is part memoir, part true crime, part cultural criticism — and 100% engrossing.
This is a very in depth and well written story about the Jane Britton case. I was drawn into not only Jane’s story, but all the information about Harvard, archaeology, and by the author’s own story. Each suspect is thoroughly investigated and Becky Cooper was dogged in her determination to talk to as many people as she could that were involved in the case in any way. Especially when she was blocked on getting any information from authorities, but it seems to have reopened the cold case for police, which was a good thing. I have to say that the story did not end the way that I thought it would. This is a great mystery and an interesting read.
Reading true crime for decades… very few stories th hat are unfamiliar…
Haven’t heard about.. this is one of the most well researched crime stories I’ve ever read
This non-fiction-book about a then unsolved murder and the author’s obsession with it held my interest throughout although it is a long story. Becky Cooper researched the murder of a 23 year old Harvard student that happened fifty years ago meticulously, and her writing is superb. Not least to the author’s efforts the murder of the young woman was solved two years ago. Kudos to so much talent and perseverance!
Candid, descriptive, and informative!
We Keep the Dead Close is the honest, compelling tale of a senseless murder of a young graduate student in Harvard’s Anthropology department, Jane Britton, in early January 1969 and the author’s own thoughts, experiences, revelations, and obsession to unravel what truly happened.
The writing is rich and atmospheric. And the novel is an extremely well researched, sincere tale of a crime with no quick, straightforward conclusion and one woman’s subsequent, complex, frustrating, neverending battle to find closure for those who loved her.
Overall, We Keep the Dead Close is, ultimately, a sensitive, exhaustive analysis and investigation of a 50-year-old cold case that includes valuable, insightful data into an iconic institution plagued by inequality, prejudice, and violence and a murder investigation riddled for years with gossip, innuendos, rumours, multiple suspects, suspicious actions, and little to no concrete evidence.
I was looking forward to reading Jane’s story but instead I found this to be more of a dissertation of Becky’s efforts to solve the case then an actual story about the murder of Jane Britton. It became confusing at times skipping between years to recall conversation with people and the “five days” before a significant break seemed to be months long. I was done with the book long before I got to the end.
Jane Britton, a 23-year old doctoral anthropology student at Harvard in 1969, was found murdered in her Cambridge, MA apartment. This suspenseful true crime page-turner kept me engaged & guessing the entire way. It pulls back the curtain on misogyny, violence, and oppression at our most revered colleges.
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…for awareness of institutional sexism, academic corruption and the silencing effect of organizations. Cooper’s focus on the victim, the complex factors surrounding her death, and the deep issues at play make for a thought-provoking read. Her investigation is entwined with personal reflection into the assumptions guiding crime narratives.
• Killer is NOT glorified
• College campus murder
• Suspenseful