In 2016, 25-year-old Carolyn Bush was fatally stabbed, without apparent provocation, in her Queens, N.Y., apartment by her roommate, Render Stetson-Shanahan. Novelist and essayist Sarah Gerard (Sunshine State) had become friendly with Carolyn while both were employed at a Manhattan bookstore. Carrie Carolyn Coco: My Friend, Her Murder, and an Obsession with the Unthinkable is Gerard's exhaustive examination of the crime and a slow-build exposé of the machinations of privilege.
Carolyn had attended but didn't graduate from Bard College, where Render was a year ahead of her, although they didn't know each other. Carolyn had no family ties to the school and received financial aid. Render's mother had a high-level administrative job at Bard, and his parents had generational wealth and donated to the school, including after his incarceration. Both Carolyn and Render had struggled to finish their degrees, but according to Gerard, only Render was, "at the behest of the Dean of Students, given the mentorship of not one but two faculty members to help him complete his thesis to a sufficient degree that would allow him to graduate."
Carrie Carolyn Coco is Gerard's hymn to Carolyn and a doggedly researched true-crime story. Gerard attended Render's trial, interviewed people who knew him, and quotes from the flurry of letters of support for him, many written on Bard letterhead. The narrative could have used some tightening, but shaggy edges can't obscure the book's brutal takeaway: Render's social status served him well. For murdering Carolyn, his defense--marijuana-induced psychosis--earned him a second-degree manslaughter conviction. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer