Rachel Monroe and Skip Hollandsworth Admit It: They Can't Stop Obsessing Over True Crime Either

Last Saturday, a few dozen people sat neatly in rows of folding chairs inside Deep Vellum Books, waiting for Rachel Monroe and Skip Hollandsworth to start talking about murder and why they're drawn to it. For Monroe, it began as a childhood obsession. "It felt like these folks were giving me like a message from reality," she said, "access to something that the grown-ups weren't telling me yet but that I knew was out there." The interest appears to run in the Monroe family. Monroe's mother, back home in Richmond, Va., has a strange habit involving the newspaper, Monroe said. For nearly five years, she's scanned the obituaries section of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, looking for every word or phrase that signifies death. She copies them down into a notebook, of which she has many now. Flipping through, you see the word "died" many times, along with the flowery stuff like "passed away," "bid us an eternal farewell" and, if the deceased was a golfer, perhaps "went on to play the back nine." "She's really cool," said Monroe.Monroe is out with her first book, Savage Appetites, after establishing herself as a magazine writer with the ability to cover pretty much anything.   Continue reading...