You're Not Alone: Melissa Moore and Michele Matrisciani on the Hidden Costs of Loving Someone the World Hates
Margo is joined by Melissa Moore and Michele Matrisciani, co-authors of Killer in the Family: The Hidden Costs of Loving Someone the World Hates. Melissa grew up in Spokane, Washington, and was sixteen when she learned that her father, Keith Jesperson, had been arrested for murder. He was later convicted as the Happy Face Killer. Melissa went on to become a New York Times bestselling author with her memoir Shattered Silence, a domestic abuse prevention advocate, and an Emmy-nominated investigative correspondent for Crime Watch Daily. She hosts the true crime podcast Life After Happy Face and is the real-life inspiration behind the Paramount+ drama series Happy Face, starring Annaleigh Ashford. Michele is a New York Times bestselling coauthor, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and an editor with more than twenty years in publishing, with an MFA from Stony Brook University. She spent fifteen years as an acquisitions and developmental editor at houses including Macmillan, Hyperion, and McGraw-Hill Trade before founding Bookchic LLC, and her collaborations span Hachette, Penguin, Hay House, and HarperCollins, most recently including Gypsy-Rose Blanchard's memoir My Time to Stand. She has collaborated with Melissa across four books. For Killer in the Family, Melissa and Michele spent six years with nine families who share something nobody chooses: someone they loved was responsible for something horrific. The book moves the focus away from the crimes themselves and onto the parents, children, siblings, and spouses left to carry the aftermath. Margo, Melissa, and Michele discuss: What it was like for Melissa's story to become public, and the years of shame that came before that Why so many people reached out to Melissa afterward with the same message: I'm just like you How they chose which families and relationships belonged in the book How Michele earned enough trust with nine families to get material this personal What Michele could see as an outsider that Melissa, so close to her own story, couldn't always see herself How they handled it when two people's memories of the same moment didn't line up The responsibility of sending a finished chapter back to the person who lived it How families hold love and horror about the same person at the same time The role media coverage plays in a family's grief and isolation Knowing when it's time to stop telling your story Killer in the Family is available now in print, ebook, and audiobook wherever books are sold. Connect with Melissa and Michele: https://michelem.net/ melissa.g.moore on TikTok Melissa G. Moore (@melissag.moore)
