The Mystery of Beautiful Nell Cropsey
A Nonfiction Novel
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
As compelling as fiction, The Mystery of Beautiful Nell Cropsey tells the dramatic story of the disappearance of nineteen-year-old Nell Cropsey from her riverside home in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, in November 1901. Bloodhounds, detectives, divers, and even a psychic were brought in to search for her, and the case immediately became a national sensation. Bland Simpson, who first heard the tale as an Elizabeth City schoolboy, weaves this true story into a colorful nonfiction account, told in three first-person voices: Nell's sister Ollie; famous newspaper editor W. O. Saunders, who covered the case as a young reporter; and Jim Wilcox, Nell's beau, who was implicated in the case. Nell and Jim's romance, her disappearance, the great search, the trials, and their aftermath are artfully reconstructed from interviews, court records, and newspaper accounts.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Subtitled ``a nonfiction novel,'' Simpson's ( The Great Dismal ) tale is based on the disappearance of 19-year-old Nell Cropsey from her Elizabeth City, N.C., home in 1901. The last person known to have seen Nell alive was her suitor Jim Wilcox: he had called on her to end their deteriorating relationship and, he said, left her crying on her father's porch. Bloodhounds tracked Nell's trail to the end of a pier on the nearby Pasquotank River, but it was weeks before her body was found floating in the water. Popular feeling convicted Jim of Nell's murder even before his trial (Nell's father refused to lead a lynch mob), and Jim served time, although he repeatedly protested his innocence and the evidence against him was circumstantial. Simpson alternates third-person narration and pastiches of town gossip with first-person narration by Wilcox, Nell's sister Ollie Cropsey and newspaperman W. O. Saunders, who covered the case. Not one of them can reveal why Simpson wrote this book. All but devoid of suspense--despite the fact that we never learn how Nell died--it has the flavor of a well-executed writing exercise on voice and storytelling, a demonstration of style for the sake of style. Photos not seen by PW.
