Reviews with content warning for Colonisation - Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

I had a hard time keeping track of who was who but this was a very informative read about an issue that doesn’t get enough attention. I’m looking forward to watching the movie.

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meagan123's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

5.0

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j0guelas's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

Patrick Wolfe was right when he said settler colonialism is a structure not an event.

I picked up the book straight after watching the movie and I can definitely say I enjoy the book more, which is not a slight to Martin Scorsese. My reading experience was greatly influenced by the movie as well - making comparison to how the story and its characters were portrayed.

David Grann is a true journalist. He wastes no time in telling the truth and laying bare how sinister white society can be in a style that is so beautiful.

While it’s true the shift to the FBI does not compare to Mollie Burkhart’s story, I was quite captured by Tom White. Though Mollie, like the film, no doubt is the beating heart of this story, White’s story was enrapturing. Following White’s story from his youth to his days as a cowboy lawman to when he becomes the FBI’s crowning jewel before slowly being lost to time was poetic.

And much like the film, I have a lot of complex feeling about this book that I struggle to articulate. Every time I come up with a thought about this book, I find myself countering it. Was I acutely aware that the person telling this story is a non-Osage person? Yes. But I was also acutely aware that I am not an Osage person. What layers of this truth is Grann missing? What am I missing?

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