The dark history of a poisonous sisterhood The women of Nagyrev are desperate.
They're abused by their husbands. They are feeding their newborns to livestock.
At the turn of the 20th century, in the village of Nagyrev, Hungary, midwife
Zsuzsanna Fazekas was more than a caretaker - she was a confidante. She helped
poor women give birth; she assisted them with abortions; and she listened. Their
stories were the same: husbands who drank, who beat them, who made their lives
unbearable. In response, Auntie Zsuzsi asked one question: 'Why bother with
them? 'Her solution was arsenic. Soon, women began slipping this concoction,
made by dissolving flypaper in water, into their husbands' porridge, stews, and
brandy. And over the next twenty years, the quiet village became the epicenter
of one of the deadliest poisoning epidemics of the 20th century - according to
some estimates, up to 300 people in the region were murdered. Why did they do
it? How did these murders spin out of control? How did these women get away with
their crimes for two decades? In The Women Are Not Fine, journalist Hope Reese
pieces together archival newspapers, court documents, police records, and the
vital work of historians, sociologists, and psychologists, diving deep into the
truth behind this extraordinary event. Her findings serve as a stark warning:
when women in a community are pushed to the brink, the consequences reverberate
through history. The Women Are Not Fine is more than a true crime story. It's a
timely, haunting exploration of what happens when women's suffering goes
unanswered.