Best of KC 2025: Rachel McCarthy James’ book Whack Job cuts deep
Rachel McCarthy James. // photo credit Carly Hays
Earlier this month, we published The Pitch’s annual Best of Kansas City issue. You can take a peek at the results of the readers’ poll here. The issue also included a list, compiled and written by our editorial staff, of some local people, places, and things that we thought clearly won 2025. We’ll be publishing these items online throughout November.
Lawrence-based writer Rachel McCarthy James spent the last few years digging into the history of a singular object, and what her Indiana Jones-style research turned up is an object of extreme and terrible power—i.e., a must-have for your bookshelf and easily the best stocking stuffer our book writers will recommend for this holiday season.
Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder is the story of the axe: tool, weapon, and status symbol of culture and technology through the ages. First as a convenient danger and then an anachronism, this examination is told through the murders it has been employed in throughout history and covers a dizzying swathe of history. Like a bloody version of Bill Bryson’s At Home: A Short History of Private Life or Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat by Bee Wilson filtered through the vibrant readability of Mary Roach, James’ Whack Job is a book that you’ll find utterly unputdownable.
While your staples of the true crime genre, a la Lizzie Borden, have their appearances here, they all arrive in forms and from perspectives that are truly peerless in that entire sphere of storytelling. Inherent in this separation is the mix of anthropological know-how mixed with Midwestern sass that allows James to spit in the face of longstanding narratives. What she offers is less a listing of people felled by the bladed instrument and more of a holistic look at how and why this object took such a profound place in cultures across continents and centuries.
At points, the axe is a weapon of ultimate revenge, while other cultures considered it such a utilitarian instrument that its mere creation could be proof that a man had the personality type required to befriend and inspire people from across a spectrum of allegiances. Yes, making your own axe could be proof that you would be a good husband because it meant you probably had the temperament to get along with folks from all walks of life. Like we said, this book is wild.
James’ work is a page turner, her voice in this space is singular, and the wit cuts like a blade. Whack Job is truly the high watermark for lit in the region this year, and you owe it to yourself to track this one down.
Click below to read the November Best Of 2025 Issue of The Pitch Magazine:
