How Sara Gruen Lost Her Life: The Water for Elephants author’s six-year fight to free an incarcerated man left her absolutely broke and critically ill.
New York Magazine, March 24, 2021: How Sara Gruen Lost Her Life The Water for Elephants author’s six-year fight to free an incarcerated man left her absolutely broke and critically ill.
“It began with a letter from California’s Pleasant Valley State Prison. Since her novel Water for Elephants sold 10 million copies worldwide and inspired a movie starring Reese Witherspoon, Sara Gruen has received 60 or so letters from people behind bars, but this one was different. The sender’s name was Charles Murdoch, prisoner No. C76287, sentenced to life without parole for first-degree murder. ‘I just finished devouring your WATER FOR ELEPHANTS,’ he wrote. ‘Oh man … it was AWESOME!’ The 2006 book, a tale of star-crossed lovers in a traveling circus, was personal for Murdoch. When he was a kid, he wrote, his grandpa told tales of performing in an early-20th-century circus with his teenage bride, Lottie. Murdoch wondered if Sara had based one of her characters, Lottie the Aerialist, on his grandmother; if so, his ‘long departed grandfolks would have sure been tickled and honored.’ He signed off ‘Respectfully, Chuck Murdoch’ and added a strange moniker: ‘Badfish.’”
Additional reading:
Sara Gruen’s plea to Dr. Phil outlining Charles Murdoch’s case
Philly Voice, December 13, 2016: Watch: Author sells entire 'Hatchimals' stock, shares details of criminal case that spurred it
