We Keep the Dead Close
A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence
by Becky Cooper
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Pub Date Nov 10 2020 | Archive Date Dec 10 2020
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Description
FINALIST FOR THE ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Named One of The Best Books of 2020 by NPR's Fresh Air * Publishers Weekly * Marie Claire * Redbook * Vogue * Kirkus Reviews * Book Riot * Bustle
A Recommended Book by The New York Times * The Washington Post * Booklist * The Boston Globe * Amazon * Goodreads * Buzzfeed * Town & Country * Refinery29 * BookRiot * CrimeReads * Glamour * Popsugar * PureWow * 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.
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781538746837 |
| PRICE | $29.00 (USD) |
| PAGES | 464 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Media/Journalist 411300
Being a huge consumer of true crime, WE KEEP THE DEAD CLOSE went beyond my expectations of providing a unique insight into a terrible murder that puts a lens to sexism and inequality experienced at Harvard. What was especially enlightening was the introspection into the "world" of archaeology and how it strangely correlates to our need to make sense of the world through stories as experienced also in the unraveling of the truth behind this crime. The author did a great job too connecting it to her personal life in a super relatable and emotional way that otherwise seems missing from the true crime genre. This was such a great page turner with many layers beyond the "whodunit" mystery. Highly recommend.
Resa N, Reviewer
We Keep the Dead Close is a victim-first true crime with memoir-style storytelling that not only investigates the murder of Harvard graduate student Jane Britton, but how all women in academia find themselves at risk.
Jane Britton, a 23-year-old with a promising future, a sharp wit, and a bright personality, was murdered in 1969. Becky Cooper hears whispers of Jane's story forty years later, as an undergrad at Harvard. And those whispers lead her on a years long investigation into Jane's murder, the most promising suspects, and the ritual elements surrounding her death.
"If…Jane's story functioned as a kind of cautionary tale, then perhaps it was less about the literal truth of what happened to Jane than it was an allegory about the dangers that faced women in academia."
Cooper doesn't focus on the gory details, however. Instead, she focuses on Jane's life, the potential lost, the history of the girl before she became a ghost story to keep undergrads from spending too much time alone with an anthropology professor that bore a striking resemblance to Vladimir Tepes. Cooper investigates not only the murder, but the institutional failings that kept investigators from information, protected suspected tenured professors, and lent the whole case an air of mystery and prestige simply because it was a Harvard murder.
"Back then, I was blind to the idea that an institution could still be destructive even if its members were good people."
With a style that is more memoirist than true crime journalist, Cooper also investigates herself. What it means to be turning 30, what it means to find yourself in the world of Harvard alumnae (and the world at large), all while seeing herself through the lens of Jane's life.
We Keep the Dead Close is a true crime tale that succeeds in bringing light to the Jane's (now solved) case. But it is also more than the simple account of a murder-now-solved, and shows the reader that sometimes, even when we get answers, we don't have closure.
Mardi D, Librarian
Beautifully well-written. Cooper has a gift for description. Once I started this book, I could not put it down. I deliberately did not research the story online so that I was waiting with every page turn for the author to lead me to the inevitable but surprising conclusion. Spoiler alert: like an Agatha Christie novel, red herrings abound! In addition to being a fascinating cold case true crime story, this is also a window into the attitudes toward women in academia and the treatment of female crime victims.
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