Customer Reviews

Poison: A History and a Family Memoir

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

 

 

In _Poison: A History and Family Memoir_ (St. Martin's Press), Australian pharmacologist Gail Bell has investigated a ghoulish family scandal. She had heard how her horrid grandfather, Dr. William Macbeth, poisoned two of his sons. She determined that she would get the facts. There was no one in her family who had first hand experience of Dr. Macbeth except her great-aunt Rose. From her, Bell did get the facts, or at least enough of them to provoke further enquiry. The facts become as plain as they can be (not very plain, but surprising facts, nonetheless) by the end of the book, but that is only partially the book's point. For the most part, it is a series of handsome digressions about the history, literature, and celebrities of poisoning.

Bell's grandfather ("the one we never spoke about") died before she was born. Rose's ghastly story was supplemented by the report of a narrative that Macbeth fancied Rose until he married Rose's sister. By the time it came to do research, all the participants were dead. What solutions arrived came from persistence, luck, newspaper clippings, death certificates, and bureaucratic files. But most of the pages here do not have to do with solving the case, which is merely an excuse (a good one) for a book of essays on aspects of poisons and poisoners. "The underlying narrative in all poison murder stories is a betrayal of trust," Bell reminds us. There are many stories of poisoners here, and the punishments meted out to those who were discovered. The particular role of females is examined, as is the folklore regarding snakebite. Along with anecdotes of famous, infamous, and nameless poisoners, there are tales of antidotes. The Australian blue-ringed octopus exudes a toxin for which there is no antidote, but there are antidotes for all the others, although they are not necessarily specific or effective.

The death by hemlock of Socrates is examined when Bell looks at Jacques-Louis David's painting of the subject and can't take her eyes off the cup. She notes that this is a non-Socratic reaction which reflects her life of pharmacological study "... and puts me in the category of the pedant who can't see past her own learning." Madam Bovary's self-inflicted death is here, and Cleopatra, Juliet, Van Gogh, Eva Braun, and many more. There is hemlock, sure, but belladonna, arsenic, Spanish fly, carbon monoxide, and others from the wealth of poisons are described here, along with sometimes grisly details about how each throws a spanner into the biochemical or organic gears that we need to keep ourselves going. Horses get arsenic because it gives their coats a shine, but eating arsenic has been a family hobby, too. Pigeons are almost immune to the effects of opium. The FDA continues to have to warn that mandrake and other roots and plants are better at killing people than they are at sexually stimulating them. There is nothing morbid in the many facts and stories here, but much macabre. Bell does tie everything together with a satisfying twist at the end. Her scholarly and entertaining miscellany ought to be examined at leisure with good cups of cocoa nearby. Be careful who makes them for you.

This work is really two books. The first is an account of the alleged poisoning death of her two cousins in 1927 by their father and the second is a history of poison and poisoning told using literary, historical, and toxicological examples. These disparate works are never really blended and there are no transitions between the two topics. Several times the author literally seems to forget about the family poison story and spends several chapters on unrelated topics. This made the book difficult to read.

There are some fascinating tidbits on poison in this book [copper arsenite was used to color wallpaper designs green and was mixed with starch, applied to fabic, dried and polished to make a passable substitute for silk that killed a woman who wore a green ball gown made of this stuff] but there is nothing really new here. Bell reviews the standard poison cases [Crippen, Palmer, Lamson, Young, Swango, Shipman] that are in most true crime reference books and the family poisoning story that sounded so intriguing at first devolved into a gossipy, frequently-incorrect account [only one of the two boys suspected of being poisoned was killed by poison]. The literary and antropological sections concerning poison myths and portrayls of poisonings were also interesting.

Overall, this book is just too chaotic and cluttered.

My rating of this book may not be fair as I came to it more interested in poisons than in the story of Bell's family.
So, it's with an acknowledged bias that I say that I think this book is at its best in its presentation of actual case studies and poison history. It's a pleasure to read the author's take on even the most familiar elements of poison lore because of the freshness and literacy she brings to the telling. She weaves together unexpected sources but is always delightfully aware of the personal and historic contexts of the sources. I particularly enjoyed the fact that she treated her own presence as narrator and author with the same degree of honesty.
That said, I can't say that I found her family's story particularly compelling, largely because there is just so little information. Bell addresses this repeatedly but I often found her speculations about the past unsatisfying and redundant. She also tries to fill the gaps with her own thoughts about poisoning, history, death, etc. Some of these are beautiful and surprising, but many just feel self-indulgent.
I should also point out that Bell never really lets up on the metaphors and similes. It gets to be a bit much.
Also, I found her treatment of her great-aunt Rose hypocritical and a little odd. Though she seems ready, if not eager, to use the lack of evidence to exonerate or at least raise questions about her grandfather's guilt, she seems awfully ready to make harsh judgements about her great-aunt based on very little information. Could it be that Bell herself falls prey to our desire for a villain in every story?
Still, an enjoyable read and a welcome break from the usual poison literature.

Here is an author who definitely belongs in Slytherin House and would probably knock the socks off of Professor Snape in Potions class. Gail Bell studied pharmacy at the University of Sydney, and has written a fascinating history of the science and sociology of poisoning. I once did a science project on the natural poisons to be found locally (water hemlock, nightshade, etc.) and found it to be a compelling subject--a close-in look at some of the more ambiguous and dreadful forms of death. After all, almost anything including water can poison if taken in the 'right' quantity.

Gail Bell has a special interest in poisons because her grandfather reputedly murdered two of his sons with strychnine. The guilt or innocence of her grandfather, William MacBeth is one of the central themes of this book--hence the subtitle 'a Family Memoir.' The author tells us, "By inclination and training I've spent many years thinking about the bad stuff, poison, and its companions: secrecy, death and storytelling."

This isn't merely a family narrative. We are also informed of other poisonings, both historical (Cleopatra) and fictional (Madame Bovary). The story of Cleopatra is especially grim, since she reputedly tested many poisons on her slaves before selecting one that would leave her beautiful in death.

The 'Queen of Poisons,' arsenic is not neglected although the author calls her "a defeated monarch at the end of the twentieth century." The 'Old Lady' is easily discoverable now, but that doesn't necessarily mean that arsenic is no longer used as a deadly, but slow way to murder one's relatives. Something that strikes me about the true crime TV shows concerning poisons is that most physicians never think to test for arsenic (or its heavy metal companion, thallium) until the victim is on his or her deathbed, or in the grave. Doctors who poison their patients are especially liable to get off scot-free until the body-count is too high to ignore.

The only parts of "Poison" that I didn't really enjoy were the author's 'rescue fantasies.' They involve Madame Bovary, the author's young uncle, Patrick, and a certain Danish king who appeared in one of Shakespeare's plays. I do believe Ms. Bell satisfactorily solves the mystery of her own grandfather's guilt or innocence, and that alone makes this a very interesting book.

An odd little book that I wasn't quite sure I liked after reading the first chapter, however I persevered and I am glad that I did.

Gail Bell the author, a trained Chemist by trade is the Granddaughter of a poisoner, a man who murdered his two eldest sons when they were babies and supposedly got away with it.

Or that is what she is told by one of her maternal Aunts and it is this family story that leads Gail into the strange, frightening world of poisons, the people who have used poison for murder, accidental poisoning and how poisons can affect the human body both before and after death.

Ms Bell is surprisingly methodical and cold about the use of poison through history, looking at the likes of Cleopatra, and Crippen and analysing their motives for dabbling in the murderous art but as she digs deeper into her own family background she finds that her Grandfather the supposed child poisoner is more complex and elusive than she could ever have imagined and that truth is often really stranger than fiction.

This book is quite chaotic as one earlier reviewer said, they are right, Ms Bell is telling two stories, one about her Grandfather, the other about poison itself as weapon for murder but for me the two juxtaposed together quite nicely, and the chaos adds to the strange charm of this book.

I liked it but I should warn you it's isn't for the really squeamish and also it isn't for those that want an easy read, because of the "chaotic" writing you need to read it very carefully but for me it was quite riveting and I read it in one sitting and really enjoyed it.

Poison, by Gail Bell, is a thought provoking journey through the macabre world of poison past and present. Her technical knowledge and wonderful command of the written word combine to make this book a wonderful read and an informative guide to literary poisonings. Her sharing of her family's dark secret is expertly interwoven between the concise examples offered. Enjoy it with a glass of wine.

Engrossing and humorous, devious and delightful, this book has it all! Couldn't put it down!

I loved reading Gail Bell's dark journey into the world of potions and lotions! The mysterious patterns of arsenic and how prolonged its death can be to the unknowing. What is the perfect poison? And who suffers from toxicopholia? What famous figures from history have tinkered with 'lethal greens'.
Gail's family story has a gothic twist to it, and I found it informative and openly personal. It's a intriguing read!