Critic Reviews
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Growing up on Cape Cod in the 1960s, Liza Rodman was a lonely little girl. During the summers, while her mother worked days in a local motel and danced most nights in the Provincetown bars, her babysitter--the kind, handsome handyman at the motel where her mother worked--took her and her sister on adventures in his truck. He bought them popsicles and together, they visited his "secret garden" in the Truro woods. To Liza, he was one of the few kind, understanding, and safe adults in her life.
But there was one thing she didn't know; their babysitter was a serial killer.
Though Tony Costa's gruesome case made screaming headlines in 1969 and beyond, Liza never made the connection between her friendly babysitter and the infamous killer of numerous women, including four in Massachusetts, until decades later.
Haunted by nightmares and horrified by what she learned, Liza became obsessed with the case. Now, she and cowriter Jennifer Jordan reveal "a suspenseful portrayal of murderous madness in tandem with a child's growing loneliness, neglect, and despair, a narrative collision that will haunt" (Sarah Weinman, author of The Real Lolita) you long after you finish it.
Believer in greater good, healing quality of books, unparalleled love of a dog, existence of quality TV. Shelf Awareness/Malcolm Avenue Review
@Gabino_Iglesias I haven’t seen these mentioned, so I’ll drop in two favorites: THE BABYSITTER: MY SUMMERS WITH A SERIAL KILLER, by Liza Rodman, and NORCO ‘80, by Peter Houlahan.
Clémence Michallon is an author and journalist.
@CharlesFinch Lauren Groff's MATRIX, Megan Abbott's THE TURNOUT, Abigail Dean's GIRL A, Ashley Audrain's THE PUSH (what can I say, I'm just full of holiday cheer), and on the nonfiction side I have been known to gift Liza Rodman's THE BABYSITTER
novel: Hawk Mountain (Norton) "a dark bleak adrenaline rush" - Clive Barker • PEN/Faulkner Longlisted 2022 • podcast: Against Everyone With Conner Habib
5 BOOK A DAY 2022 WEEK 5 What I read (I only got 5 this week! 😱) Long Lankin by John Banville Loyalties by Delphine de Vigan Blackbird by David Harrower In a Shallow Grave by James Purdy The Babysitter by Liza Rodman & Jennifer Jordan https://t.co/skpckL1T1j https://t.co/gQr1NOqSyg