Think of everything cliché you know about the 1950s: housewives spent their days vacuuming with martinis in hand and a look of existential horror in their eyes, and every home was outfitted with a TV set.

They caused the greatest disappointment,” wrote the Szolnok Gazette while the trials were taking place. “Instead of witches, demons and crafty murderers we see only kind, poor, old and broken women on the benches . . . Life has brought them little joy. However, they did not deserve anything better.

Why did that one friend scoot her chair away from me when I told her I “empathized but didn’t sympathize” with every woman in this book? I don’t think our obsession stems from the fact that we are all secretly violent, using the serial killer to enact our darkest fantasies. I think it comes from our enduring love of stories.