ISSUED: 6 April 2022
MEDIA CONTACT: Dana Costa
SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV — Voters from the campus and community have selected Shepherd University’s 2022-2023 common reading book— “The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia” by Emma Copley Eisenberg.
The book focuses on the murder of two middle-class outsiders named Vicki Durian, 26, and Nancy Santomero, 19, in the early evening of June 25, 1980, in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. They were hitchhiking to a festival known as the Rainbow Gathering, but never arrived. For 13 years, no one was prosecuted for what became known as the “Rainbow Murders,” though deep suspicion was cast on a succession of area residents. In 1993, a local farmer was convicted, only to be released when a known serial killer and diagnosed schizophrenic named Joseph Paul Franklin claimed responsibility. Serious questions remained, however, and as time passed, the truth seemed to slip further away.
Weaving in experiences from her own years spent living in Pocahontas County, Eisenberg follows the threads of this crime through the complex history of Appalachia, revealing how this mysterious murder has loomed over all those affected for generations, shaping their fears, fates, and desires. Beautifully written and brutally honest, “The Third Rainbow Girl” presents a wide-ranging portrait of America divided by gender and class and haunted by its own violence.
About the Author:
Emma Copley Eisenberg was raised in New York City and lives in Philadelphia. She completed an internship in Pocahontas County in 2007 when she was a college student and lived there from 2009-2011 while serving in AmeriCorps working as a counselor at the girls’ wilderness camp. Eisenberg’s work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, McSweeney’s, Granta, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Tin House, Esquire, Guernica, and The Washington Post Magazine. She teaches the bi-monthly course Reporting for Creative Writers, and has taught fiction for Bryn Mawr College, the University of Virginia, Catapult, The Porch, and the San Francisco literary journal ZYZZYVA. In Philadelphia, she co-directs Blue Stoop, a community hub for the literary arts. Her next two books, a novel and a collection of short stories, are forthcoming from Hogarth (Penguin Random House).
About the Common Reading program
Shepherd’s Common Reading program provides a common academic experience for all first-year students. The program aims to provide a shared intellectual experience; create a sense of community; encourage reading; promote critical engagement of ideas; set academic expectations; create dialog between students, faculty, staff, and the community; promote interaction between Shepherd and the community; and introduce students to community resources. The program is sponsored by the Shepherd University Foundation.
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