When She Was Bad
How and Why Women Get Away with Murder

Name: When She Was Bad
Brand: Penguin Random House
Availability: InStock
Author: Patricia Pearson
ISBN: 9781039000254

Author: Patricia Pearson

Narrator: Sarah Mennell

Unabridged: 11 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Random House Canada

Published: 02/02/2021

Categories: Nonfiction, Psychology, Social Science, Violence In Society, True Crime, Murder

Synopsis

In this provocative book, award-winning journalist Patricia Pearson argues that our culture is in denial of women's innate capacity for aggression. We don't believe that women batter their husbands or abuse the majority of children in North America. We ignore the 200 percent increase in crime by women in a period when most crime statistics are dropping. Pearson weaves the stories of women such as Karla Homolka and Mary Beth Tinning (who smothered eight of her children) with the results of criminologists and psychiatrists to expose the myth of female innocence.

About The Author

PATRICIA PEARSON is an award-winning journalist and novelist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times, Huffington Post and Businessweek, among other publications. She is the author of 5 books, and was a long-time member of USA Today’s Op-Ed Board of Contributors. She also directed the research for the 2009 History Channel documentary, The Science of the Soul. Known for upending conventional wisdom, Pearson’s first book, When She Was Bad, questioning our simplistic understanding of violent women, won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Non-Fiction Crime Book of 1997. Her new book, Opening Heaven’s Door: What the Dying May Be Trying to Tell Us About Where They’re Going, has just been published in Canada and the United States, with foreign language editions to come.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Erin

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review. Expected publication date: January 5, 2021 In “When She Was Bad”, Canadian journalist Patricia Pearson examines the role of female aggression. Using examples of fema......more

Goodreads review by Kirsty

This made for very uncomfortable reading at times. It taught me a lot of things that I didn't want to accept, which is good as sometimes we all need to be challenged.......more

Quotes

WINNER OF THE ARTHUR ELLIS AWARD FOR BEST NON-FICTION

A GLOBE & MAIL BEST BOOK

"This important, necessary book highlights our urgent need to re-examine what we think we know about female aggression." —The Globe and Mail (Notable Book of the Year)

"Groundbreaking." —The Vancouver Sun

"A compelling, frightening look at women, not as victims of violence, but as perpetrators of it. . . . Gripping, controversial material that sheds light on violence and society, and how women can get away with murder." —Kirkus Reviews

"Remarkable. . . . It is also profoundly disturbing, as it is the first significant sustained challenge against mainstream notions about violent femmes." —Quill & Quire

Awards

Arthur Ellis Award for Best Non-Fiction