I suppose I’ve read several accounts of The Black Dahlia mystery from different perspectives. I appreciate Hodel’s need to “show his work” and establish credibility as a researcher. However, he needed an editor. The book is too long, and his attempts at foreshadowing failed because he doesn’t allow the questions to drive the narrative with satisfying answers. By about chapter 25, I felt certain he was using the exact same sentences. My mind wandered.
What stands out to me about this narrative is how shitty it was for women to exist in that society run by those kinds of powerful men. What they did to Tamar, alone, is unforgivable. What did Elizabeth Short want? What were her ambitions? Certainly, she did not want to be an escort. She was young and pretty and had a modicum of power because she “dressed well” and was deemed a “good girl” by several cold bystanders. But how did she live? Like a nomad. A woman without a phone number. The truth is there were lots of Elizabeth Shorts in LA that were vigorously used and discarded without being physically killed. The only reason I’m reading this story today is because she died so horribly and artfully. But her only value seems to be in the “unsolved mystery” of her destruction. No one cared about or for Short when she lived. It’s hard to stomach.
So what else did Hodel find out? I don’t know. I couldn’t stand listening to him refer to George Hodel as “father” in the narrative anymore. He was anything but.
I want to know what June knew, and I wonder if Steve ever squeezed anything out of her. Yes, she cried and cried and cried AND CRIED (so Steve repeated), but what did she know? How complicit was she?
Anyway: I’d read the cliff notes of this one.