After the fact

There are a number of reasons why Fact of a Body seemed, at least at first, a promising book. Author Alexandria Marzano Lesnevich is a lawyer by qualification. She’s also a survivor of sexual abuse as a child. In the book she tells two stories: She tells the story of Ricky Langley, a child molester who kills one of his victims but along the way she also sheds light on her own experience.

Her own story describes her childhood, her relationship with her siblings, her relationship with her parents and their relationship one another other. In her own story, we are also introduced to her grandparents. Slowly piece by piece, she relays the story of her own abuse at the hands of her grandfather. This second story is told with a deftness that possesses both detail and anguish. She delves into the depth of her inner turmoil. This is where Marzano’s writing shines. She doesn’t shy away from the ugliness of the truth. It’s presented raw and up close.

There are chapters that are tough to read. Lines that leave you heavy and drained. Sexual abuse is laid out for you in painful detail that is both devastating yet illuminating. Marzano recounts those early childhood years when her grandfather creeped into her bedroom after her grandmother went to bed, in excruciating detail. One is often left feeling that they were present with her, in that room, experiencing the abuse with her. This makes the book both indescribably difficult to read but also makes a strong case for why Marzano is truly a gifted writer.

In the book, she also explores the years of self-loathing she felt afterwards. The times she was terrified of exploring a sexual connection because of the trauma of early childhood abuse. The year she spent at home to cut herself off from the world.

The incident during a family holiday where it finally dawns on her parents that their children are being abused by a close relative is another chapter that stands out. It represents life in all its flawed glory. The grey area between good and bad, the intangibility of right decision and wrong. The inability of her parents to fully acknowledge what has been done and appropriately communicate with Marzano where she feels heard, understood and protected by them. Their refusal to accept and recognise the anguish she has suffered and continues to suffer because of the ordeal. Her need to talk about it versus their desire to brush it under the rug presents the painful reality of what many face in the aftermath of a traumatic ordeal.

There are also other aspects of her early adolescence that and teenage years that she pens down. Where she details her confusion when faces with her father’s excessive drink alone in the late hours of the night. She also recounts the time spent in her father’s law office which made her first grow to admire it. She then delved into the years her mother goes to law school, which helped her cement her love for the legal world.

However, Marzano’s book isn’t solely a memoir. It splits between true crime and a memoir. Some chapters detail her own journey and others flip back to Louisana in 1992 when Ricky Langley commits the murder of a minor after allegedly abusing him. And this is where the book disappoints. Both stories are well-written but not fully told. Ricky Langley’s crime is explored right off the bat. However, the book struggles to dive deep enough into this story. It’s evident that many of the facts outlined in the book are purely from the court trials and evidence documented in the process. Many of the testimonies are purely from the trial too. This seems to work in the early chapters at least but later on, several of the chapters read incomplete.

Marzano could have attempted to interview some of the key players in the story. The mother of the victim of abuse, Ricky’s family members themselves and even the family Ricky lived with in the house where he commits the crime. In lieu of those much-needed interviews, several of the chapters focusing on Ricky’s story alone, are dissatisfying. The read like half facts rather than fully explored questions. One is left with those confusion and questions rather than information and revelations.

One of the reasons Marzano chooses to explore this case is because most of her life she has been staunchly anti-death penalty. As a survivor of child abuse, when faced with defending and freeing someone on death row for the same crime, makes her question how strong her belief is. However, her attempt to tell both stories leave the reader with two half-told stories rather than even one fully told one. The subject of death penalty is explored to an extent in the later chapters, but this too doesn’t feel enough on the topic. For this reason, it feels like Marzano has taken on some weighty topics and stories but in the ambitious attempt to explore all of them, none have full been done justice.

Moreover, as a writer who is also a lawyer, I had high hopes that Marzano would more deeply explore the legal ramifications of the case itself. Marzano touches on this in the prologue by discussing a principle in the law called proximate cause. However, we don’t see this degree of discussion enough thereafter in the book itself. Overall, the book reads as a nebulous attempt to far too many topics.