Customer Reviews

Parker & Hulme: A Lesbian View

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Like a lot of these other reviewers I bought this book because I saw the movie "Heavenly Creatures" and at the end I found myself wanting to know "what happened next?". When I searched through Amazon this is the only book that turned up, and while I wasn't interested in the case from a purely lesbian point of view I thought it might at least answer some of my questions about the murder, the subsequent trial and imprisonment of the two girls and what happened to them after their release. On these points the book was very helpful.(However,Parker and Hulme themselves were not interviewed for this book, nor were the full diaries of Pauline Parker researched.)

I was, however, a little dubious about the "lesbian view". The authors' goal is to once and for all disassociate lesbianism from criminality and/or mental illness which I think is applaudable. Public opinion about homosexuality is bad enough here in the '00s, I can't imagine how narrow it must have been in the '50s when the murder took place. But as I was reading I discovered that not only did the authors take offense at the villification of lesbians, but at the criminal image in which Parker and Hulme were viewed.Gay or not gay, I'm not sure how else to think of two girls who lure one of their mothers into the woods and beat her to death with a brick except as criminal. One part that actually made me laugh out loud was when the authors were criticizing the way the newspapers misrepresented the facts of the murder in order to distort peoples' opinions about the girls. The paper claimed that Mrs. Parker had been struck more than 40 times with the brick. The authors are quick to defend Parker and Hulme by pointing out that "the coroner's report had clearly stated that (her) body showed 'forty-five discernible injuries' with perhaps one blow causing several injuries." Be serious!I don't see what difference it makes if they hit her 40 times or 14 times, they clearly beat her repeatedly and without mercy until they were certain she was dead!

I really felt the whole way through that the authors wanted not only to defend lesbianism, but to defend the girls in the process, and some of their arguments really grasp at straws in my opinion. There was a lot of emphasis placed on imperfect home lives and narrow limits placed on people by society. Parents and society surely played their roles in shaping these two girls, just as they shape all our lives, but the argument just doesn't wash as an excuse for senseless brutality.

As lesbians who grew up in about the same time and place as Parker and Hulme, the authors must have had great sympathy for the girls. They all must have experienced similar feelings of rejection and/or shame due to the fact that they were made to feel "different" or "bad". I think this made it impossible for the authors to present a clear, unbiasd argument about the murder and the aftermath.

I'm a huge fan of the film "Heavenly Creatures," which is of course how I got interested in the Parker & Hulme case, and this book was recommended to me by some fellow HC fans. It's pretty much the only comprehensive study devoted to the case out there, and I find it quite well-written as well as very thorough and utterly fascinating. A must-read if you enjoyed HC, especially because it covers the trial and all that happened *after* the murder, unlike the film, and is chock full of detailed facts and accounts, as well as analysis and cultural context. Overall a wonderful book, I'd recommend it to anyone and especially those who, like me, became intrigued by this story after seeing HC.

It would be unfair to expect this book to react to Peter Jackson's film "Heavenly Creatures," inasmuch as it was written before the film was made. As a companion piece to the film, however, it fleshes out the New Zealand of the 1950's and gives the murder a societal context. Unfortunately I found it difficult to be engaged by the book's distance from its subjects; Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme seem rather remote from the author's concerns, and the focus falls rather on the case's impact on contemporary and later lesbian politics and individuals. While I have no particular quarrel with the authors' politics, the title would suggest a closer examination of the girls themselves. In particular I question the authors' decision not to attempt to contact the grown-up Parker and Hulme for some comment. All in all, although this book places the events in context, it fails to illuminate the girls themselves.

My first contact with the Parker and Hulme story came about one night in the 1960's. My interest at the time, during my own estrangement from the everyday world, was to go through old newspaper stories stored at San Francisco's Main Library. Late one night, while going through many newsclippings about the 1950's, I began to read this particular case and became increasingly moved. My tears fell all over the desk, and I never forgot what I had read. Years later, when the film came out, I was transfixed. And there aren't many films that I will buy on cassette to watch over and over, except Badlands and Heavenly Creatures. Eventually I got a computer, and of course went searching the internet for people who appreciate the same things as myself. The soul mate who put together a website asked if I had seen the book. And when I said I had not, she pointed out it was available here. The sub-title is "A Lesbian View." That soul mate, and others including myself, will disagree with the simplistic lesbian interpretation. And that controversy is at least a secondary aspect to this fascinating murder story. As with many other straight men, I find some lesbians to be quite erotic; but the friendship between Parker and Hulme appears spiritually intense and not very sexual at all. Whatever you think, especially if you saw the film and went absolutely bonkers, this book is worth buying.

The Evil Friendship (1954) was the first book about this case, written by VIN PACKER. It will be reissued by Stark Press in 2006. This book came many years after, but it is a fair read, just as Heavenly Creatures was okay. Marijane Meaker

So far, this is the only book I have been able to find on the Parker-Hulme matricide case. I normally wouldn't read a book about lesbians, and I thought lesbianism figured very little in the movie, but I didn't find it distracting here in the book, it didn't take away from the facts of the story. There are loads of details here that aren't in the movie, but I agree with others: why hasn't this been written about before, and especially now since Hulme is known to be the mystery writer Anne Perry? All in all, a very good book, and I read a lot of true crime!

In 1954, two New Zealand girls, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme, killed Pauline's murder. This book explores the social and economic status of the girls, the Christchurch society and the overall conditions of the time period. It explores why children or women murder and discusses the anti-lesbian hysteria surrounding the trial. I picked up this book in order to read more about the case. Overall, the book contained few details about the girls life. It was more of a social commentary about the time period than about the girls themselves. Overall, I was a bit disappointed, not because of the writing style, but because I wanted to know more about the girls backgrounds, interactions and the murder itself.

Okay, this book, as the other reviews have stated, is interesting in it's description of what followed the murder of Honora Parker. Heavenly Creatures left us with so many unanswered questions. Unfortuantely, while intersting in parts, most of the book is pretty superficial, pretending to delve into the history and psyche of Pauline and Juliet when it is actually a rather lazy analysis which only scratches the surface. The chapter which supposedly gives serious, important information from Pauline's diary to prove she's not "mad" or "bad" made me crack up...about 2 pages of continuous 1 or 2 line excerpts describing the housework Pauline helped her mother with. And that was it. That was the whole of the "analysis" of the diary. Washing dishes for her mum. What in the hell is this supposed to prove? All in all, a dissappointment, but interesting for the account of events after the murder and the (few) photographs.

After reading and studying this particular case, I find it almost offensive that ANYONE would write a book about this infamous crime and focus on lesbianism. Yes lesbianism was considered a disease and those who engaged in it were considered insane. Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme (Anne Perry) were NOT lesbians!! So why focus on that when this story is NOT about lesbianism. Get OVER your lesbian persecutions. If I could give this book no stars, I would.

This is to my knowledge the only book out there exclusively about the Parker/Hulme case.Its a little shocking that another book hasn't been written about such a well known murder case, and in light of the fact that Juliet Hulme is now known to be Anne Perry,the famous mystery writer.I do agree that the lesbian angle was focused on a bit too much, even though that is a big part of the book.But it gives a lot of info about the case I hadn't heard before and a pretty clear picture of what happened.If anybody wants to know more about the story behind "Heavenly Creatures", read this book.