| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 39.2

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| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 39.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Enigma Woman: The Death Sentence of Nellie May Madison. Women in the West Series. By Kathleen A. Cairns. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007. xi + 295 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliographic essay, index. $29.95.)

This is an outstanding biography of a woman who challenged societal norms by marrying several times, remaining childless, wandering the West, earning a professionally accomplished resume, and by being convicted of murder and sentenced to hang in California. In this splendidly crafted narrative of Nellie's life, Cairns explores the West as geography and a place of reinvention, the rise of mass popular culture and its impact upon the individual, Los Angeles as myth and reality, criminal prosecution as a force in social control, the media's ability to elevate or destroy individuals, and intimate abuse as a legal defense to murder. To map this woman's life, Cairns traveled to all the places Nellie resided, but found most her life frozen in the appellate files and newspaper accounts of her murder trial. In the process, the author creates a compelling story and crafts insightful interpretations of law and culture in Los Angeles during the Great Depression.

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