A Boston Globe Book We’re Most Excited About This Summer ● An Oprah Daily Best Book of the Summer ● A Chicago Review of Books Must-Read Book of the Month ● A LitHub Most Anticipated Book of the Year ● A Crime Reads Year of Literary True Crime Pick ● A Book Culture Most Anticipated Book of the Month ● A Best Evidence Most Anticipated True Crime of the Year Pick ● An InsideHook Book You Should be Reading This Month
“What stuns about Carrie Carolyn Coco is not merely the tragic murder of a woman by her male roommate, but also the intricate ways in which Sarah Gerard unravels poison in the dark corners of Carolyn Bush's world: a fancy liberal arts college with a chilling history of violence; the violence in Bush's everyday existence; the web of people who are willing to stand up for Bush's murderer, some with dubious motives. Gerard also illuminates Bush's life by making her wildly and shimmeringly alive—she is not merely The Dead Girl of the narrative, but also a complex protagonist whose desires and idiosyncrasies are laid plain in this astonishing exploration.” —Esmé Weijun Wang, New York Times bestselling author of The Collected Schizophrenias
“A tender, multifaceted portrait of a young poet’s too-short life, and an incisive, deeply reported investigation into the personal and societal circumstances that led to her death. . . . Gerard pushes back against the typical arc of a true crime story and invites the reader to make their own meaning of Bush’s life and death alongside her.” —Kristen Martin, Washington Post
“Gerard brings her highly sensory yet effortless . . . writing style and scrupulous research abilities to bear on an astonishing web of money, and on societal and institutional failures . . . tossing aside conventional true crime formulas in favor of deftly woven, conversational complexities. The resulting assemblage is heartbreakingly immersive; at times, it can feel all too easy to forget that Carolyn is gone.” —Anna Marie Cain, Los Angeles Review of Books
“I was so impressed by the breadth and depth of the reporting, the interviews, the trial coverage. . . . Grief expresses itself in so many different ways [and Gerard has] created both the conversational conditions where people can speak to some of these difficulties and then created the textual conditions, a map where their voices can all exist in the arc.” —Leslie Jamison, Interview Magazine
“With the thrilling turns of a crime drama and the deep emotional reckonings of a memoir, Carrie Carolyn Coco is a powerful testimony of Carolyn’s life and the author in pursuit to reclaim and honor her story.” —Michael Welch, Chicago Review of Books
“Written in Gerard’s trademark detached style, this true crime memoir chronicles the brutal stabbing murder of the author’s friend. Gerard explores the murder from numerous angles, including interviews with the victim’s family and those who knew the perpetrator.” —Leland Cheuk, Boston Globe
“To write this nonfictional account, Gerard spent six years interviewing Carolyn’s family members and friends, reading court documents and Reddit threads, and attending Render’s trial to piece together the full story. Given the care and persistence Gerard shows in each chapter, the book is as much a methodical crime drama as a moving tribute to Carolyn’s life.” —Francesca Billington, Oprah Daily
“At last, a book about what is left out of most murder stories: the way a death reverberates through a community, forever changing all those who knew and loved the deceased. Sarah Gerard has an exacting eye. She brings her formidable strengths as both a writer and private investigator to bear in Carrie Carolyn Coco, as she investigates the shocking murder of her friend. Deeply affecting and impossible to put down.” —Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, author of The Fact of a Body: A Murder & A Memoir
“[A] wrenching blend of memoir and true crime . . . a poignant portrait of a life cut short and a forceful examination of the cultural forces that shaped Bush’s murder, including gendered violence and inadequate attention to mental health issues on college campuses. It’s a devastating deep dive into a confounding crime.” —Publishers Weekly
“Sarah Gerard’s skills in both creative writing and private investigation are on full display in this disturbing account of her friend Carolyn Bush’s murder by a roommate, and the many iniquities that enabled the crime. She also examines a wider culture of male privilege and entitlement at her alma mater of Bard College, the same school attended by both Carolyn and her killer, drawing a convincing through-line between the university’s abysmal record on sexual assault and mental health treatment and the shocking crime at the heart of her book. Gerard also connects the case into a wider discussion of privilege and power in the New York literary scene, and shows the devastating impact of Carolyn’s loss on an entire community.” —Crime Reads
“A haunting, empathic read that ventures to some difficult and revelatory places.” —Tobias Carroll, InsideHook
“In a sweeping act of grace, Sarah Gerard has written an ode, a testament, a love letter to a friend, and the scathing critique of true crime I’ve been waiting for. Carrie Carolyn Coco presents an unfathomable act of violence and a depiction of the systemic, patriarchal ills that allow exploitative mythologies to be spun from suffering. This book is a balm and antidote to such narratives—offering, instead, a story full of light, artistry, and strength. I didn’t know Carolyn Bush or her art when I started this book; now I do, and my life is fuller for it. I hope more and more storytelling will dignify, as Gerard has so powerfully done, lives and talents like Carolyn’s, lost too soon.” —T Kira Madden, author of Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls
“A true-crime investigation, but also a carefully assembled portrait of a young woman whose life was senselessly cut short. . . . In writing Carrie Carolyn Coco, Gerard not only acted as an investigative journalist . . . but an elegant storyteller, too, weaving a tapestry of Bush’s life.” —Juliette Jeffers, Interview Magazine
“Femicide is explored in a deeply personal manner by Sarah Gerard, whose friend Carolyn Bush was stabbed to death by her New York City roommate in 2016. Bush was a poet, and her roommate Render was an art handler, and Gerard sets out to understand how it came to murder, looking beyond her friend’s ecosystem to the wider systems at work.” —LitHub
“A comprehensive, heartfelt . . . examination of the far-reaching impacts of one woman’s life and murder.” —Kirkus
“Who gets to be considered an artist? What are our duties to protect and care for each other? What happens to the stories someone told when they die? What are the ingredients of white male entitlement and systemic violence? These are just a few of the terrible, joyful, philosophical, intractable, ineffable, and wise questions Sarah Gerard ponders in Carrie Carolyn Coco. Stylish, sly, strange (in the best way), and sublime.” —Emma Copley Eisenberg, author of The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia
“After her friend Carolyn Bush is brutally murdered in the fall of 2016, writer Sarah Gerard becomes obsessed with trying to understand how this could happen. Gerard conducts hundreds of hours of interviews, scours legal documents, and reads a seemingly endless number of news articles to try to find answers. Eventually, she uncovers some shocking truth about her friend’s life.” —Book Riot
“A meticulous, maddening, and tenderly crafted exploration of the bureaucracy of loss, the mirror-maze of tragic mourning, and the search for meaning after death, Carrie Carolyn Coco provides the rarest form of literary testament in its unswayable pursuit of truth, justice, honor, and love. What an incredible gift Sarah Gerard has summoned from her soul to shed a lasting glow on a singular thinker, artist, and friend, Carolyn Bush, lost far too young, still full of a life most might have never known.” —Blake Butler, author of Molly
“As a true-crime investigation, readers may be drawn to [Carrie Carolyn Coco] simply because of the nature of the tragedy. But the work succeeds most of all as a testament to the innumerable relationships, both profound and banal, that make every death worth mourning.” —Booklist
“A compassionate, illuminating, and fiercely researched and written response to what has become of true crime as we know it now and to some of the most devastating and heartbreaking realities people are forced to contend with every day.” —Autostraddle
“In this lyrical masterwork of grief and reckoning, Sarah Gerard turns the tables on true crime, bringing her murdered friend Carolyn Bush fully to life on the page not as a victim but as a dazzling young poet finding her way in New York City. At once an elegy and an investigation, Carrie Carolyn Coco celebrates a talented woman’s too-brief spark while fearlessly confronting the shocking forces of wealth and power that protected her confessed murderer at trial. A devastatingly effective interrogation of privilege and justice, riveting right through to its stunning final pages. If this book doesn’t break your heart, you don’t have one.” —Ellen McGarrahan, author of Two Truths and a Lie: A Murder, A Private Investigator, and Her Search for Justice
“I worked with Carolyn a few years before her death and think of her often. Sarah Gerard’s book is as much a tribute to Carolyn, her life, and the atmosphere of NYC in the mid-2010s as it is a portrait of a crime or a killer.” —Book Culture
“Heart-wrenching, harrowing and relentlessly researched, Sarah Gerard’s Carrie Carolyn Coco kept me up at night searching for answers, not only to the looming why at the heart of the story, but to the wider systems of silence and oppression that so often lead to tragedy. An unforgettable account of a true, terrible crime, and a lasting remembrance of a life lost too soon written by one of the most compassionate, searingly talented writers working today.” —Allie Rowbottom, author of Jell-O Girls
“Sarah Gerard's Carrie Carolyn Coco is simultaneously an investigation of a murder, a tribute to the victim’s life, and an expose of the legal and educational systems designed to protect wealthy, white men from their own actions. As a journalist, PI, and writer, Gerard relies on her investigative powers to make sense of the senseless. Deeply felt, impeccably researched, and told with pinpoint precision, Gerard casts a penetrating and enlightened eye on the cracked foundations of justice.” —Erika Krouse, author of Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation
“Sarah Gerard has written a penetrating, engaging, and illuminating exploration of the murder of her friend Carolyn Bush, a young, free-spirited, aspiring poet. Gerard dives deep into a world where privilege and class collide and where truth and justice seem elusive. She raises important questions about mental illness and criminal responsibility and honors her friend with compassion and sensitivity. Gerard combines her talents as a novelist and sharp skills as a journalist to create an impressive work of narrative nonfiction inhabited by complex characters and rich story telling.” —Kevin Davis, author of The Brain Defense: Murder in Manhattan and the Dawn of Neuroscience in America’s Courtrooms
2024-03-09
A novelist and essayist turns to true crime in this deep-digging account of the murder of her friend.
Before she was brutally stabbed to death by her roommate in 2016, Carolyn Bush was a poet and a “founding board member of the nonprofit reading room and library” Wendy’s Subway in New York City. She was also a believer in astrology, a Bard College student, and a friend to many, including Gerard, whose account of Bush’s life and murder takes a kaleidoscopic approach. “To reconstruct Carolyn’s story in her own voice,” she writes, “I have gathered her language from text messages, emails, blog posts, poems, essays, social media, and interviews with many of her loved ones in which they recollected their experiences and correspondences with her.” The result is a well-researched yet often disorganized collage that includes detailed accounts of the murder and resulting trial, as well as the lives and histories of both Bush and her murderer, Render Stetson-Shanahan, who also attended Bard. At times, Gerard’s heavy use of quoted material gives great insight into Bush’s character and the story of her death, such as the marginalia scribbled in Bush’s copy of Simone Weil’s Gravity and Grace: “‘Time heals all wounds, unless the desired body ceases to exist. Then it is a wound, disembodied.’” However, too many voices on the page often bog down the text, and Gerard’s attempt to cover every facet of the lives of both Bush and Stetson-Shanahan leaves many storylines unfinished and readers unsure where to focus. Whereas “we can easily understand and consume” the typical cultural narrative of the death of a white woman “without too much reflection,” Gerard’s collagist biography and true crime investigation demands the readers participate in meaning making.
A comprehensive, heartfelt, occasionally chaotic examination of the far-reaching impacts of one woman’s life and murder.
