Stories We Love: "The Fall River Axe Murders," by Angela Carter
by Celeste Ng
If this story were submitted to a MFA workshop, the results would be—forgive me—a hatchet job. Angela Carter’s “The Fall River Axe Murders” breaks all the rules we learn in writing classes. Let us count its sins: The entire 17-page story takes place in the few seconds before the Borden family—as in Lizzie Borden—wakes up on that fateful August morning. And I mean seconds: just as the maid’s alarm clock ticks to six o’clock but before the alarm bell rings. There is virtually no action; almost all of the story is scene-setting and character description. The writing is, in typical Carter style, […]
