I will be importing my WordPress subscriber list to my new SubStack so as to facilitate continued communication with my fans from TCL. I will do my best to avoid duplicate subscriptions if you have signed up for SubStack already.
If you do not wish to receive my SubStack newsletter, I’ll be sad to see you go, but you can unsubscribe from this blog before this evening, or unsubscribe when you receive the newsletter.
Hello, gentle reader!
It’s been a good long while since we spoke. In that time, I’ve missed you a lot.
I wanted to let you know about my new project: the All Opinions Her Own newsletter. Focusing on events of the day as well as criticism, I’m sure you’ll still find your fix of macabre media reviews and much more. Content from True Crime Librarian may reappear on the Substack from time to time.
Much Love,
The Librarian, aka Allison
PS The Cat is well, but as she enters her old age, she reserves the right to be crochety when the mood strikes her.
As the twentieth anniversary of the September 11 attacks approached, I found myself increasingly displeased with some of the language of my original “In Aggregate”
I decided to clarify that while the unidentified of 9/11 may be forever bonded, physically, to the sites of the attack, their memory and their afterlife are not bounded by the location of their remains.
May God have mercy on those who died those day, on those who have died of diseases contracted on the Pile, and of all who have died in the War on Terror. May they be brought to “a place of light, a verdant place, a place of freshness, from where suffering, pain and cries are far removed.”
May their memories be a blessing. And may God bless America.
My soul does not cleave to the dust
Even if my flesh does
Even if my blood clots it
Even if my bone shapes it
Nowhere and everywhere I am
And I am not alone—
Like motes in a sunbeam
We hang together, strung
Between here and eternity.
This is eternity: to be bonded,
but not bounded, by time and space;
To see a day as twenty years
And twenty years a day
The line between life and death
Is so thin, and still so terrible
Like the sharp blue edge of sky;
So begrudge us not this sacred earth
Of which we have become a part.
For all victims of 9/11 who were never recovered
Allison Shely, 9/10/2021
Dear Reader,
It is with a grateful, but heavy, heart that I announce the end of this project. As you have doubtless noticed, my productivity with regard to this blog has dwindled over time, and simply plummeted during the last year.
COVID has forced me to reevaluate my goals and priorities. I have decided to consciously move away from True Crime Librarian, which my heart had done long before my head. While my career still involves writing, it has long since moved away from the true-crime niche.
I remain endlessly grateful and thankful for the kind attention, feedback, and support you have given me over the last five years. From interviewing authors to getting positive author responses to my critiques, from sharing with you a bit about myself to sharing great stories with you, I will cherish these memories and learning experiences for the rest of my life.
I will be keeping the blog up at least until June, when my WordPress contract renews, and will keep you updated as to if/when it will go offline. I hope someone else will be able to use the domain name in the future.
Sassy, my husband, and I are all well. Sassy celebrated her tenth birthday last fall and we are so blessed to have her. I started this blog shortly after adopting her, so it only feels right to acknowledge her as I leave it behind.
If you want to keep up with Sassy or my future work, I would be humbled if you followed us on Instagram @authorallison.
My professional writing website is allisonshelywriting.com.
Again, thank you for everything.
Bittersweetly Yours,
Allison R. Shely
I should be married by now.
After all, the ceremony was set to begin at 3:30, end at 4:30. By now we would be married, have celebrated with cocktails, sat down to dinner. At this very moment we’d probably be dancing.
But we’re not. Because that’s not what the time calls for. Instead we got a strawberry-and-cream cake and drank some champagne at home.
We’ve rescheduled for October, and have plans in place for social distancing, but as long as I get married and get to wear the dress I’ll be happy.
In another timeline, another Allison is having the wedding she planned.
And in that timeline nearly 100, 000 Americans are still alive, as are hundreds of thousands more around the world.
That they are not here with us is the real tragedy of today.
At the end of our times, I pray, another wedding will take place. And the dead will rise; Arlington Cemetery, across the way, will empty; dust will rise up from the streets and form back into towers long-lost.
Then we will have dancing.
Promise me,
when I come to dusk:
You’ll undo all the knots
and tie up the loose ends.
-Allison R. Shely, 13 January 2019
Finals are finally over! I’ve had a chance to put up the tree. This is the first year I’m holding Christmas away from home, so this is the first year I’ve had a tree in the apartment.
Sassy’s initial reaction had me concerned.
I then caught her scoping out the tree…from the comfort of my freshly washed Christmas tablecloth!
With the tree decorated, and anti-cat mats and sprays laid around it, I was still surprised to find it intact when I got home today.
Wishing all of you a very happy holiday season, and a Christmas without drastic feline intervention.
Knives hit me in the stomach. I looked down at the shrieking cat, squirming around in my hands.
Et tu, kitté?
Trying to kick off and escape, she had punched her very sharp back claws into me.
Can’t say I didn’t deserve it. I told her as much the previous day, when she nearly gave me a mastectomy, attempting to launch over my shoulder from my collarbone.
It’s for her own good.
* * *
At the start of the month, Sassy had her dental cleaning. As a kid I heard people make fun of Martha Stewart for brushing her cat’s teeth, but I do think it was for the best. Dental health is a good prevention against various infections, in people and felines. Sassy had rotten teeth, no bones about it.
She came from the shelter like that, I swear.
A thorough dental cleaning requires anesthetics, because–well, have you ever put your finger in an angry cat’s mouth? I’ve been doing it for the last two weeks and I would highly recommend against it. I had been nervous about putting Sassy under, but research and a discussion with my vet have assured me that while risks do exist, they are marginal for an otherwise healthy animal.
Sassy came through the surgery without any complications–and minus two rotten-through teeth.
That left me with two weeks of liquid antibiotics to administer orally to a cat who hates being held. Wrapping her in a blanket as a “kitty kolache” only protects me so much. The only comfort she gets from it is hiding her face in the blanket so I can’t bring the syringe to her mouth.
This process, if done to a human, probably violates the Geneva Conventions. Sassy tells me as much.
She is a good girl and doesn’t scratch to hurt–it’s just that her claws are out when she tries to escape, and my skin happens to be a good place on which to latch. I’ve never seen this cat bite anyone, even when she’s been given good reason (for example, putting her in the crate).
Aside from some nasty scratches, I’ve also had antibiotic paste spit into my eyes, onto my sleeves, and into my hair. I also swear that she woke me up every two hours last night because she knew we were going to the vet for suture removal this morning.
* * *
“Can you tell I’m overly attached to this animal?” I asked the vet before her surgery.
“Yep.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“I don’t think so.” He smiled.
* * *
It’s all worth it.
We had been concerned her weight loss was a sign that something very, very serious was wrong with her. In the last two weeks, since the tooth removal, she’s put on half a pound and is approaching her ideal weight again. Of course, this makes her even more difficult to wrangle at medicine time, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
She also seems a little less afraid of visitors. She only runs away when they approach her, not when she hears the doorbell ring.
Best of all, even immediately after I shoot two vials of antibiotics into her mouth, twice a day, she chirps at me and rubs up against my leg.
All is forgiven; all is well.
28 August 2017
Hello, readers,
I hope everyone is doing well this late summer evening. For my fellow Houstonians and Texans, I am praying for your health and safety.
For everyone not surrounded by a newly formed lake, the mayor of Houston has created a hurricane relief fund administered by the Greater Houston Community Foundation. Your donation is tax-deductible and greatly needed.
I cannot endorse GHCF from my personal experience, but that is where city officials prefer donations go.
Turning now to blog news…
For those of you not lucky enough to have discovered the joys of Yiddish, according to Google, “Mensch: n., a person of integrity and honor.”
It takes a lot to open yourself up to criticism. It takes even more to respond to criticism with grace and class.
And for that capacity, Kenneth Ackerman ought to be acknowledged.
In my review of Mr. Ackerman’s Trotsky in New York 1917, I noted an error that, to my obsessive grad student eyes, seemed rather glaring.
Mr. Ackerman reached out to me, thanked me for catching the error, and promised it would be amended in the next edition of the book. You can view our exchange at the top of the comments section of the original review.
Or putting ads on my blog, depending on your point of view.
This is a one-woman show that started because I love true crime, cultural criticism, and writing. I even think I’m a little bit good at it. The writing and criticism, not the crime part.
I’ve never committed a crime. I swear.
You can only top doing things for love with doing the same things for love and money.
While it would be my desire to keep ads off particularly sensitive posts, such as active missing persons cases, WordAds automatically places ads on all posts. My solution to this is to promise that I will never charge family and friends of missing persons, or victims of unsolved crimes, for an outreach post on my blog. If I am able to see how much money is generated by an individual post, the proceeds from ads on those pages will go to search efforts or a charity chosen by the relevant parties.
My decision to sign up for WordPress’s ad program now is because I feel comfortable enough to share enough of my original writing with you. The response I got to the story of my madcap drive down to D.C. inspired me to make that leap.
Stay tuned for more funny stories about my otherwise delightfully average life, poetry that I promise wasn’t written by me during my middle school Goth phase, assorted fiction, and reflections on current events. Of course, I will keep the book and TV reviews coming.
I hope you’ll join me for the journey.
With the exception of some duly-cited historical photos from the public domain, all words and images on this blog are produced by me.
While I am the offspring of lawyers, I am not a lawyer, so I will refer you now to the lovely copyright language provided by WordPress:
© Allison R. Shely and True Crime Librarian, 2016-2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Allison R. Shely (alias “the Librarian” and “L”) and True Crime Librarian with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
I’m sure none of you lovely people needed that reminder, but I’ll put it in the website footer just for good measure.
Please don’t alienate me from my labor more than is necessary.
Be Happy,
-L
I’ve meant to get to my next book to review, John David Bethel’s Evil Town. I featured Mr. Bethel’s Blood Moon earlier this year, and he was good enough to do an interview with me.
With graduation coming Monday, and with the Comey scandal turning into a real-life political thriller, I plan to sit down next week and report back.
Thank you for your patience. I was more tired from college than I thought.
true crime librarian 