Book Review: Many Restless Concerns: The Victims of Countess Bathory Speak in Chorus

We want you to know how we lived. That we lived. That we were girls before we were game. That we were alive.

Too often the voices of victims are silenced. In a world fascinated by evil, those that practice it become celebrities, and those who suffer from it, forgotten. In her collection, Many Restless Concerns, Gayle Brandeis speaks for the victims of Erzsebet Bathory in excruciatingly exquisite poetry. This is a haunting book. Take your time reading it; every line should be savored.

Note: There is some debate whether Bathory was actually guilty of mass murder, or was framed by a government who couldn't abide a woman with the amount of power she wielded. That debate, and my opinions in it, did not affect how powerful I found Brandeis's book to be.