The Third Rainbow Girl The Long Life Of A Double Murder In Appalachia Emma Copley Eisenberg by Emma Copley Eisenberg 9780316449236, 0316449237 instant download after payment.

A
stunning, complex narrative about the fractured legacy of a decades-old
double murder in rural West Virginia -- and the writer determined to put
the pieces back together. In the early evening of June 25, 1980 in
Pocahontas County, West Virginia, two middle-class outsiders named Vicki
Durian, 26, and Nancy Santomero, 19, were murdered in an isolated
clearing. They were hitchhiking to a festival known as the Rainbow
Gathering but never arrived. For thirteen years, no one was prosecuted
for the "Rainbow Murders" though deep suspicion was cast on a succession
of local residents in the community, depicted as poor, dangerous, and
backward. In 1993, a local farmer was convicted, only to be released
when a known serial killer and diagnosed schizophrenic named Joseph Paul
Franklin claimed responsibility. As time passed, the truth seemed to
slip away, and the investigation itself inflicted its own traumas --
turning neighbor against neighbor and confirming the fears of violence
outsiders have done to this region for centuries.
In The Third Rainbow Girl, Emma
Copley Eisenberg uses the Rainbow Murders case as a starting point for a
thought-provoking tale of an Appalachian community bound by the false
stories that have been told about it. Weaving in experiences from her
own years spent living in Pocahontas County, she follows the threads of
this crime through the complex history of Appalachia, revealing how this
mysterious murder has loomed over all those affected for generations,
shaping their fears, fates, and desires. Beautifully written and
brutally honest, The Third Rainbow Girl presents a searing and wide-ranging portrait of America -- divided by gender and class, and haunted by its own violence.