I know it took me years to get to this, but I was disappointed when I finally did. By the time we reach the actual crime, Baatz somehow makes Evelyn Nesbit a footnote in her own story. He completely leaves her out of the narrative, then ultimately questions her account of her own rape. There was so much opportunity here to look at this story with a modern lens. How did Nesbit find agency in a time when it was so difficult? How did the press and public's obsession with crime impact the case and every aspect of Nesbit's life? I don't understand why Baatz chose to tell this story at this time without doing anything new or interesting with it. In short, I think I need a feminist to tell this story better.

Baatz did an interesting job telling the story of Evelyn Nesbit and the Stanford White killing, but the actual crime section happens very early in the book, leaving the rest to be filled with mostly inconsequential information. The legal case is important, but it seemed like most of the book was about Nesbit's husband and his struggles, rather than her.

I received a digital ARC of this book from Netgalley.

I'm a little surprised that I had never heard of this case until reading this book. It's got all of the ingredients to be the subject of pod casts, books, and period television dramas. But to do it justice would also force us to reckon with the long, long history of rape culture, victim blaming, and toxic masculinity, so of course we aren't going to do that.

The facts of the case: In 1906, celebrated architect Stanford White was murdered by louche playboy Harry Thaw at a show in Madison Square Garden, which White had designed. Thaw claimed he had done it because several years earlier, White had raped Thaw's wife, Evelyn Nesbit. The rape took place several years before Thaw had met Nesbit, and if I'm remembering correctly, Thaw was the only person Nesbit had told about it.

Even after Nesbit had relayed her harrowing story on the stand, it took two trials for Thaw to be found not guilty by reason of insanity. This was not the reprieve he or his family had hoped for, since he was sentenced to a mental hospital, where he remained for several years. During that time it came to light that Thaw had a few skeletons in his own closet, namely that he like to beat young women that he invited to his lodgings. There's even a bizarre, extended coda concerning Thaw's escape from the mental hospital, gallivanting all around the North East and Canada, and the Governor of New York attempting to recapture him.

I wanted something from this book that I did not get, which was a real feminist analysis. I wanted the author to dig into why Nesbit never told her mother she was raped, why she didn't go to the police, why Thaw seemed to feel that Nesbit's rape was an affront to him. I don't really have any patience for the author's (brief fortunately) suggestion that the rape didn't happen. There's no logical reason for Nesbit to put herself through her husband's trial for a rape that never happened.

So, I didn't get everything I wanted out of this book, but I'd still say it's worth reading. The Stanford White murder and its aftermath is a strange, dark chapter in American History, and worth knowing about.

A true story that griped the country in the early 1900’s, but this story would be headlines no matter what the year. The story begins about a young girl Evelyn Nesbit who by the age of 16 is an actress and because of her beauty and I am thinking age she is being wined and dined by wealthy men of New York. One of the men who actually becomes enamored with her is an architect, Stanford White. One day she goes to his home for lunch and after drinking some wine, alcohol and maybe adding something to her champagne she wakes up naked in bed with White next to her calming her down saying or actually telling her everything will be okay, but don’t tell anyone. Another man became attracted to her as well and when White paid for Nesbit mother to travel with her to Europe. This trip is where she would meet her future husband Harry Thaw who would also become obsessed with her and her beauty, and where when the trail began that the district attorney would come back and use this as just one of the many ways as to try to discredit Nesbit story. Thaw would continue to follow her around and she finally agreed to his proposal of marriage, but she also told him about what had happen with Stanford White. Then a few years later when they were all at a perforce in Madison Square Garden which had been designed by White, Thaw walked up to him and shot him. Now the rest of the book is mostly the two trails of Henry Thaw. The author takes you through both but really the first one is the one that takes up most and where the young Nesbit because of her age and thinks people are in her corner and is thrown off when she is on the stand by the way the district attorney attacks her, and also her mother is no help by giving the impression that she thought her daughter was telling the truth. This goes back to the trip and the money that the mother took and that White paid the mother more money because she was poor. Thaw on the other hand and his family distanced themselves from her as well and by the time the second trail came Nesbit still stuck to her story but was not as naive, though she still would be taken advantage of by Thaw’s family attorney’s, not agreeing to the terms of the divorce. A very interesting story that had many different aspects to it. Money and power, and you must still remember women still did not have the right to vote yet, and when my grandmother graduated from college during this time she was not given a diploma like men were they, they were given certificates, women could not even sit on juries. Just things to think about. I believe Nesbit and her story and the end of the book goes into what happened to her life until her death. A very good book.

This is an ok book. I have read better on the subject.

This book made me rethink all of the past assumptions I had made about Evelyn Nesbit and I think that it did for the author as well.

The basic story has always been this. A teenager, Evelyn, went to the big city in about 1900 in hopes of making it big while her mom hoped that Evelyn would succeed and therefore support her mom and little brother. I'm sure her mom would say she went to NYC for better opportunities to support her family, yet that plan changed to Evelyn's shoulders quickly.

13/14 year-old Evelyn was beautiful and quickly caught many eyes as an artist's model, even becoming a Gibson Girl. She soon got tired of staying so still for hours at a time and in 1901 she talked her mom into letting her become a chorus girl in the successful show at the time, Floradora.

Very soon, she caught the eye of the very successful Architect, Stanford White, who was 47 at the time, but what's a little age difference between friends? In no time, he became her family's protector of sorts, setting them up at a better hotel and even footing the bill for her younger brother to go away to school. At the time, this was fairly innocent and even her mother trusted White and approved. At one point, her mother wanted to go back to Pennsylvania to visit relatives and Stanford White happily foot the travel bill.

This is where the story gets a little dicey. Past histories and Evelyn's later court testimony say that while her mother was out of town, White drugged Evelyn and took advantage AKA raped her. Time went by, Evelyn being naive continued to associate with White until she came to the unending attention of the very rich and unlike White, unmarried Henry Thaw. He wined and dined her, even taking Evelyn and her mother to Europe to experience the wonders there.

Supposedly one night when Thaw asked again to marry her, she poured out the story of White's raping her. Thaw was angry, of course, with White, yet said it didn't matter. They were eventually married in 1905. However his anger at White never really died down and eventually, it came to a head in a very public Front Page sort of way.

I tried to set the stage, although Baatz does it better and in more detail and I will leave the rest of the story for you to read in his book.

What made Baatz look at the story is that he questions some of what I highlighted above after all of his research for the book and frankly, I don't blame him when looking at it in whole. Most authors that have covered the story and it was even made into a movie in 1955, took everything at face value and in the time-honored tradition trashed the victim and White by looking at only the basics and assuming the worst. Baatz didn't do that and after the dust settled, also followed Evelyn to her eventual end and portrayed her as a survivor, which most haven't. They allowed her to disappear and that was and is a shame. Other authors also seem to forget that she was a teenager when this all happened and was being torn by so-called protectors and her mother that, I'm sorry, no matter what she said, pushed her daughter to support their family without thinking of the risks to her young naive and beautiful daughter.

I won't use the phrase tour de force, it's overused and sort of idiotic. However, Baatz took a historical event that many of us thought we knew and shifts our viewpoint to a slightly new way and that is pretty damn magical.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. All thoughts are my own and it should obviously be noted that I was not a neophyte to this story and therefore have had much to compare his look at it too. It was awesome and the honesty of his end thoughts were enlightening.

My apologies-I requested this book but now realize I can't download it as it's not in kindle format. I would have liked to review it. Thanks anyway.

As much as I wanted to like this book, I couldn't really get into it., with that being said, this is still a story I will be bringing up and talking about the book at my next true crime club meeting.

A great tru-crime story that is from a time past that shows today few things have changed. The rich get richer, the "law" for the rich man is far different than the poor man. A great read for me

"The Girl on the Velvet Swing" is a popular history of the infamous Evelyn Nesbit murder scandal, which includes a notorious murder trial, a man on the run, a public airing of sexual trauma, and questionable medical understanding of the time.

What's good: The book is a genuine page-turner. You do want to know what happens, and you find yourself immersed in the flow of the story.

What's iffy: Despite being a history, there's an awful lot of conversations here which are clearly reconstructions from either testimony or the author's imagination. While this makes the narrative move easier, it's still dodgy methodology, as it brings us to teetering on the edge of historical fiction.

What's problematic: For a book about sex, murder, and madness, the book doesn't do much to frame any of those three subjects within the lens of their time. Instead, we just follow the Nesbit case. A bit more context would be preferred, but then again, I'll admit this is a popular history and flow would be an issue.

Finally--and this is my biggest problem--the handling of Evelyn's claim of rape leaves a lot to be desired. While the author openly admits he doesn't know if Evelyn was telling the truth, and he raises the question of her repeated association with her rapist after the attack, he doesn't offer up explanations that are today quite common for assault survivors. Women frequently *do* continue on with relationships with their assailants. For a young woman like Evelyn, desperate not to be shamed, relying on this benefactor for income, she would have had further motive to simply go into a state of denial/trauma. That doesn't necessarily mean this was the case for Evelyn Nesbit, but these points should have been more stressed. They are common enough in any reading of trauma today.

All in all, the book was quite readable, entertaining, and thoughtful, so I would recommend it.

This is a must have for those who love true crime and history because it is a great mix of both without being cliche. I think also the way that baatz writes the characters, makes the book feel like a novel. Great work.

Sorry just requested but hadn't realised it wasn't in kindle format and I am unable to download it. Thankyou for the approval even so as I do appreciate it.