Madison Square Tragedy: The Murder of Stanford White

If Nancy Grace had been around in 1906, she would have covered the murder of Stanford White, an architect of many of New York City’s greatest landmarks. White was shot that year by psychopathic rich boy Harry Thaw, because of a previous affair that White had with Evelyn Nesbit, a famous model, who later became involved with Thaw. A media sensation of the day, Nesbit graced the covers of magazines, and eventually began performing on Broadway. In Geary’s account, neither White nor Thaw comes off as upright citizens. When Thaw’s attention falls onto Evelyn, he pursues her relentlessly until she marries him. When he discovers that White slept with her, he becomes enraged, torturing and raping Evelyn, and obsessing over how to destroy White. At first glance, Geary’s artwork appears stiff, almost sterile, but as the story unfolds, the line work captures the strangeness and excesses of the era’s wealthy. As with previous entries in Geary’s series of graphic novels books exploring famous murders, this is a steady and enthralling account of White’s murder which also provides an impressive narrative of Nesbit’s ability to survive in a world of men trying to control her and bend her to their wills. (Dec.)