And The City Swallowed Them Single eBook Mara Hvistendahl Deca
Download As PDF : And The City Swallowed Them Single eBook Mara Hvistendahl Deca 
At age 22, Diana O’Brien left a small island community on Canada’s Pacific Coast and moved to China to work as a model. Twelve days later, she was stabbed in a Shanghai stairwell. The actions of both police investigators and O'Brien's Chinese modeling agent soon aroused suspicion as her family sought answers from China's opaque legal system. Ultimately, their quest would put them face to face with her accused killer.
At once a page-turning murder mystery and a work of deep investigation, And The City Swallowed Them is a true crime nonfiction story based on dozens of interviews with investigators, models, and both the victim's and the convicted murderer's families. The short book moves from Shanghai's back alleys to the seedy underbelly of high fashion, where young models travel alone to strange cities, often with falsified work papers, and sleep ten to an apartment between cover shoots. Set against the backdrop of Shanghai's explosive urbanization, the work also explores the world of China's liudong renkou, or floating population, where the hopes of newcomers from poor villages often turn to dust—leading some to horribly desperate acts.
The debut digital title from the writers cooperative Deca, And The City Swallowed Them overturns assumptions about both China’s feared justice system, where the conviction rate for criminals is 99.9 percent, and the glamorous world of international modeling. More than a murder tale, And The City Swallowed Them lays bare the powerful forces that send two families on a collision course from distant sides of the Pacific.
PRAISE FOR AND THE CITY SWALLOWED THEM
"By developing each arc along the collision course and detailing the range of social forces that contributed to the tragedy, Hvistendahl shows how essential and illuminating the best long-form journalism can be." —San Francisco Chronicle
"The versatile and talented Mara Hvistendahl...[brings] specific settings and distinctive individuals vividly to life in a manner that makes them seem utterly unique — yet also just like places and people the reader has encountered in totally different parts of the world.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
"And The City Swallowed Them looks at the world that brought two different kinds of newcomers together—foreigners, including young models fighting for emerging opportunities in high fashion, and China’s own migrants, including those traveling from poor villages who were willing to go to desperate measures to scrape together their own living.”—Wall Street Journal China Real Time
“A tragic and fascinating portrait of the unglamorous subculture often found in second-tier modeling markets around the world.”—Fashionista
“What seems like a cut-and-dried crime story becomes, in Hvistendahl's capable hands, a tale of two young adults adrift in a city far from their rural homes…. In this meticulously researched account of two lonely young people whose lives erupted in deadly violence, we discover the human face of the urban future.” —io9
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mara Hvistendahl is an award-winning author and journalist and a founding member of the writers' cooperative Deca. A contributing editor and writer for Science magazine based in Shanghai, she has also written for Harper’s, The Atlantic, Scientific American, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Popular Science, Foreign Policy, and other publications. She has spent much of the past decade in China, reporting on everything from archaeology to sex. Her first book, Unnatural Selection Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Pulitzer Prize. She has been featured as a radio and television commentator on MSNBC, the BBC, the CBC, PRI’s Marketplace, NPR’s Morning Edition, and elsewhere.
And The City Swallowed Them Single eBook Mara Hvistendahl Deca
I thought this story was largely compelling. It starts off very slow with a sudden turn towards a crime investigation, though as the narrative begins and we are taken into Diana's day-by-day life traveling from home to Shanghai to pursue modeling--even though she seemed largely disinterested--was interesting. What turns from a crime story investigation turns into a commentary on the state of Shanghai urban life, city culture and a critique on its justice system, revealing some dark, seedy stories.The story describes Shanghai city culture well, with all its foreign praise and outside influence. The beginning chapters describing its praise of models “being both famous and anonymous” hit a dark chord, signifying the deeply sad and corrupt nature of Shanghai city culture.
The text is really brought alive, as I could feel and sense what kind of environment Diana inhabited throughout the story. At every interval, we would be presented a chilling or wary fact—something that seemed fishy. This kept me consistently mindful, seeking out red flags whenever I saw them.
This story almost frustrates you, as you realize how corrupt, shady and unsafe everything is--from the modeling agencies, trafficking, justice system and lack of support for those in poverty. There were also so many conflicting reports from the media coming out, which coincided with what the modeling agencies were promising as good work to their clients. In a way, these modeling agencies paralleled with the state of the media—both corrupt and hush-hush, largely challenged or talked about.
It seems that even to the victims and the innocent, all are ultimately victims of China’s justice system. “The Chinese legal system is not a justice system ... The end point of all of this is not justice. It’s about control."
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And The City Swallowed Them Single eBook Mara Hvistendahl Deca Reviews
Well-recorded, but too shocking to really have enjoyed the book. It however gives a clear picture of how China's rapid growth has more of a negative effect on the majority of its citizens, especially those it had to rely on most to make this economic "miracle" a reality - the migrant workers. It also gave some insight in a very flawed justice system which is also not benefiting the ordinary citizen - was he really the murderer ..? This is not the only story of its kind about foreigners paying the ultimate price for China's rapid growth. Sadly in this case, an immensely talented and energetic young life wasted as her drive after life's adventures got her to the wrong place at the wrong time. So sad; but her parents' attitude could be commended, despite their great loss.
I ordered this book after hearing an interview on CBC Radio. There normally wouldn't be much to interest me in this topic. The world of fashion models, stories of true crime, or socio-economic challenges in modern Shanghai, would not usually appeal to me. But I missed the end of the interview and felt the lack, so I looked up the author. Her credentials (pulitzer prize nominee) were stellar, and so I gave this a read out of curiosity.
I ended up reading the book in pretty much one sitting. I was lured in by the depth in her characters, the insight the author had of the place and atmosphere, and her ability to tell a compelling story... Instead of a sensational lurid crime re-enactment, this was a thoughtful sympathetic story, analytic without any dryness, and it left me, I felt, with understanding, and maybe even sympathy, for everyone involved. I am looking forward to reading her other book
" Unnatural Selection Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men".
This is a very dry and almost uneventful account of a murder in China. It is based on fact. It involves the inexplicable stabbing of a young Canadian model who travels to China boost her career.
The book does a decent job of describing how the Chinese Justice System works. You are left with the probability that justice was never really done.
What I found difficult to fathom was the attitude of the girl's mother and father. They travel to China to try to get facts. They seem to have very little emotion about the murder and the murderer. I found this very aspect of the book to be hard to fathom. I am sure they were heartbroken but that did not come across in the book. The Mother seemed to have too much empathy for her daughter's killer.
There was really not much to learn about China or the girl. I had hoped for a great deal more insight but was disappointed.
Unfortunately, I'm with the people who found this a bit of a disappointment. In fact, when the email came in asking me to review it (maybe a month later), I had forgotten the book entirely - couldn't remember buying or reading it or what it was about. It made that little impression. Having gone back to look at it again, I would describe it as a fairly dry account of the murder of a Canadian model in Shanghai. The death was tragic, and this poor review is not intended to slight the impact of that death. But this story failed to develop any great empathy or emotion for any of those involved. It seemed to be trying to be a journalistic expose on the mistreatment of Western models in Asia, but the facts as recounted just seemed to show that the woman's death was one of those random killings that occurs all over the world, when burglars are interrupted mid-task. No less sad, but not really a result of industry mistreatment.
I thought this story was largely compelling. It starts off very slow with a sudden turn towards a crime investigation, though as the narrative begins and we are taken into Diana's day-by-day life traveling from home to Shanghai to pursue modeling--even though she seemed largely disinterested--was interesting. What turns from a crime story investigation turns into a commentary on the state of Shanghai urban life, city culture and a critique on its justice system, revealing some dark, seedy stories.
The story describes Shanghai city culture well, with all its foreign praise and outside influence. The beginning chapters describing its praise of models “being both famous and anonymous” hit a dark chord, signifying the deeply sad and corrupt nature of Shanghai city culture.
The text is really brought alive, as I could feel and sense what kind of environment Diana inhabited throughout the story. At every interval, we would be presented a chilling or wary fact—something that seemed fishy. This kept me consistently mindful, seeking out red flags whenever I saw them.
This story almost frustrates you, as you realize how corrupt, shady and unsafe everything is--from the modeling agencies, trafficking, justice system and lack of support for those in poverty. There were also so many conflicting reports from the media coming out, which coincided with what the modeling agencies were promising as good work to their clients. In a way, these modeling agencies paralleled with the state of the media—both corrupt and hush-hush, largely challenged or talked about.
It seems that even to the victims and the innocent, all are ultimately victims of China’s justice system. “The Chinese legal system is not a justice system ... The end point of all of this is not justice. It’s about control."
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