Murderous Love Triangle Revisited

                                                      PQ BookBlog
By Sandra Levis

Well, at least one person visited the PQ Reading Room this spring and read my article on Mary Roberts Rinehart, her debut novel and her interest in Sewickley Heights.  This was evidenced by the letter I received requesting clarification on the topic of Harry K. Thaw, the millionaire playboy from Allegheny City who married a showgirl and murdered Stanford White in 1906.  Conveniently, my reader and other interested parties can now learn more about Thaw’s sensational case and the events preceding it in a new book, American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, the Birth of the “It” Girl and the Crime of  the Century by Paula Uruburu (Riverhead Books, May 2008). 

The story of the triangle formed by these three remarkable people (Thaw unfortunately having been omitted from the lengthy title) is truly fantastic; I have read numerous accounts of it over the years and never tire of it.

Thaw, the spoiled son of the railroad baron William Thaw, was undoubtedly a true psychopath, whose uncontrollable behavior caused him to be exiled from Pittsburgh to  New York City, where he found his element in the Tenderloin district of the Gay ‘Nineties.  Stanford White was the most celebrated architect of his day; an artist and designer and unapologetic libertine whose interest in the dewy Miss Nesbit was allegedly founded on an aesthetic appreciation for her exceptional beauty.  If things went a little too far…well, he was a man after all, in the golden Edwardian Age of Men.  And Nesbit (who hailed from Tarentum, Pa.) was a beauty indeed; her lovely young face and form a perfect blend of purity and sensuality onto which artists and suitors projected their fantasies.

Thaw always hated White; resented his celebrity and conquests.  He pursued Nesbit as much for her White connection as for her beauty, eventually pressing her into marriage.  Her deflowering by White then became Thaw’s excuse for murder (which took place in public, at the rooftop theater of the White-designed Madison Square Garden), with Thaw asserting that his action was in the name of honor and helpless womanhood.  Nesbit, who claimed to have adored White, nevertheless took the stand in defense of her husband and spared no details; neither  White’s request that she cavort in a red velvet swing, nor  Thaw’s attacks on her with a horsewhip during their honeymoon.  It’s all extremely rooty-tooty.

The problem is, Uruburu takes all the fun out of the story.  Rather than portraying Evelyn Nesbit as a well-meaning but naturally seductive minx – as Joan Collins did in the recently-released-on-DVD 1950s film, The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing – she keeps pointing out that Evelyn at 16 (the age at which her affair with White commenced) was a minor, a child who was raped by a lecher and then exploited by her mother, who encouraged the marriage to Thaw in order to take revenge on his mother, who had snubbed Mrs. Nesbit in their Pittsburgh days. Technically, I suppose, the author is correct, but her 21st-century point of view strips all the glamour from the sensational story and reduces it to a lurid sex crime.  Casting Evelyn as a victim, rather than a willing participant in her own destiny, has the effect of reducing her dignity rather than restoring it, and I believe this 20th-century Helen of Troy, with the face that launched a thousand newspaper stories, deserves better.

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Speaking of crime…I recently received a copy of From Crime to Crime: Mind-Boggling Tales of Mystery and Murder (Tallfellow Press, April 2008) from author Dennis Palumbo, a Pittsburgh native and Pitt grad who now lives and works in Hollywood as a psychotherapist to the stars. Professional ethics prevent him from including patients in his stories, but the characters are based on real people; a group of Palumbo’s friends who gather on weekends to hash out the issues of the day. 

In this book, they are armchair detectives; a bunch of “smart guys,” distinguished in their respective fields, who puzzle over cases while kicking back with munchies in the comfort of an air-conditioned den in the San Fernando Valley.  Ultimately, the mysteries are solved by the wise, enigmatic senior member, Isaac, for the benefit of  readers unable to crack the cases on their own.  The stories are short and not really mind-boggling; “diverting” would be a better word.  Think Encyclopedia Brown for a middle-aged audience, with blood and beer and ironic asides.  Palumbo worked as a screenwriter before turning to psychotherapy, and his tales read a lot like scripts for television. One can easily picture the ensemble cast as portrayed by former stars brought out of semi-retirement. I imagine a Tom Bosley type in the Isaac role.   This book won’t keep you up nights, but it will keep you occupied on a flight, in a waiting room, or at your child’s soccer practice.

Sandra Levis is the literary editor of Pittsburgh Quarterly.  She welcomes recommendations from readers for Reading Room selections.  Reach her at: editor@pittsburghquarterly.com