[Lizzie] is a retelling of the famous murder trial of a spinster girl of New England whose name has become immortalized in the four-line bit,

              Lizzie Borden took an ax,
              And gave her mother forty whacks.
              When she saw what she had done
              She gave her father forty-one.

It would be wise to read the very last chapter of this bulky novel before embarking on page one, because Hunter admits he has mixed facts with lots of fiction. A reader may easily become befuddled at the way the story is told. The novel cleverly alternates the whole story between Fall River, Massachusetts (where the two murders were perpetrated in the year 1892) and several swanky European cities where Lizzie is supposed to have sojourned. It was there, Hunter opines, that she became sexually involved with a pretty lesbian girl whose bedroom exploits and hedonistic philosophy are graphically narrated. Hunter...