Carrie Carolyn Coco My friend, her murder, and an obsession with the unthinkable

Carolyn Bush was a Florida-born poet, beloved younger sister, and ambitious young transplant to New York City. Stabbed to death by her roommate, Render, she died at just 25 years old. Author Gerard (True Love, 2020) had come to know her through the local arts scene, where Bush was the cofounder of a new writing space. The two women were just acquaintances when Bush was alive, but here, under Gerard's careful reporting, we are given a portrait of the friendship that could have been. Though it pings between the killer's trial, the present day, and an abbreviated history of Render's life, the vast majority of the work is dedicated to constructing a biography as told by the many people who now carry Carolyn Bush's memory. As a true-crime investigation, readers may be drawn to it 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 life meaningful.

In this wrenching blend of memoir and true crime, novelist Gerard (True Love) unpacks the murder of her friend, Carolyn Bush, through conversations with the friends and family of both the victim and her killer. In 2016, the 25-year-old Bush was stabbed to death by her roommate, Render Stetson-Shanaha, in New York City. The two hardly ever interacted, casting a cloud of mystery over the killing. After Stetson-Shahana confessed to the murder, his attorney claimed he was in a psychotic state brought about by smoking marijuana with his brother, and he was convicted of manslaughter in 2020 and sentenced to 5--10 years in prison. Plagued by the lack of motive at the center of the tragedy, Gerard, who met Bush at Bard College, interviewed the people who best knew Bush and Stetson-Shahana at various stages of their lives, hoping to shed light on the case. What emerges is both 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. Agent: Adriann Ranta Zurhellen, Folio Literary Management. (July)

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. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.