Bright Young Women & Chocolate Sourdough
A dark story and a thrillingly dark loaf of sourdough
Hello and welcome to Good Book/Good Bread! I’ve spent the last few weeks happily settling into shoulder season here in the mountains. Rainy days, lots of reading, baking, and general puttering. After being on a many months-long waitlist at the local library for Bright Young Women, I got my paws on it and it was worth the wait. I paired it with a dessert-like, rich sourdough that made my house smell magical. Read more below and enjoy!
Good Book: Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll (2023)
In a Nutshell
Bright Young Women is about the victims and survivors targeted by Ted Bundy at their sorority house one harrowing night in 1978. Our protagonist, Pamela Schumacher, is the high achieving president of her sorority at Florida State University. Pamela is organized, studious, and will be on her way to law school in a few months. On a humid night, many of her friends head out to a party, but Pamela stays home to study. She wakes at 3 am to a strange noise, and encounters a man fleeing the house. Pamela catches a brief glimpse of his panicked face. Within minutes, Pamela discovers that the intruder had just murdered two of her sorority sisters, and brutally injured two others. In the days after, Pamela tries to unravel the mystery of what happened that night. This book turns on its head the popular narrative popular in the press that Ted Bundy was brilliant and charismatic, instead focusing on the promising and intelligent young women whose lives he upended. The title is a play on the words of the Florida judge who called Ted Bundy “a bright young man”.
Bright Young Women in Three Words
Honest, suspenseful, difficult
What I liked about Bright Young Women
Avoids being sensational
Knoll has a very pragmatic way of writing about the horrific details of the murders. I found she was skillful in developing honest and realistic narration that never veered into sensationalism. Given the true nature of the content, it felt like she handled it in a very respectful way.
Secondary story
While Pamela and her sorority sisters are the focal point of the book, Knoll introduces a second storyline through the character of Tina, whose close friend Ruth went missing in Seattle several years prior. Tina is convinced the same man killed Ruth who terrorized the sorority house, and travels to Florida in the days afterwards to make contact with Pamela. The two work together to dig into the ineptitude of the justice system that contributed to the murders, and this secondary story adds a sense of urgency.
Doesn’t name the killer
Knoll never names Bundy. Instead, she refers to him as The Defendant throughout, de-centering him from the story. She then focuses on the inner lives of the women affected by his crimes, developing them in a much more fullsome way than is typical of books about murder.
Notable Quote
“ But it made for a more salable story if he was portrayed as someone who did not have to kill to get his kicks, who had prospects in his romantic life and his career. […] The Defendant peered back at me with black vacant eyes. They are scary eyes, don’t get me wrong, but what frightens me, what infuriates me, is that there isn’t anything exceptionally clever going on behind them. A series of national ineptitudes and a parsimonious attitude toward crimes against women created a kind of secret tunnel through which a college dropout with severe emotional disturbances moved with impunity for the better part of the seventies. ”
Good Bread: Chocolate Sourdough
Why this bread for this book?
I knew I wanted to bake something dark for such a dark topic, and the cocoa powder turning this loaf a rich dark brown was perfect. It’s also unusual to see such a dark sourdough loaf, and it made me think of a change of perspective, like how Knoll presents this story.
Recipe
I used my go-to sourdough recipe, which is from The Kitchn, linked here. After the third fold, I added a half cup of cocoa powder, and a half cup of crushed baking chocolate. It was tough to gauge how long to bake this loaf for. I generally eye-ball the colour of the crust and pull it out when it has reached a malty dark brown colour. The already dark dough made this difficult, and I think I underbaked it. But, the soft crumb worked well given the desert-like quality of the chocolate chunks and cocoa powder. I ate it warm with a pat of butter and *chef’s kiss*.
Looking forward:
Book I’m looking forward to reading: All Fours by Miranda July
Music I’m looking forward to listening to: Broken Circle Breakdown soundtrack
Bread I’m looking forward to baking: green tomato focaccia
Thank you for reading! If you liked this issue, forward along to a friend. If you hated it, please forward along to an enemy.
ps. if you’re looking for some other newsletters to enjoy, below are a few of my faves:
I really want to make chocolate sourdough!