Domesday Book

Domesday Book is a narrative poetry collection that constructs a communal portrait through fragments of lives intertwined. At its center stands Elenor Murray, whose tragic death becomes the catalyst for a cascading meditation on consequence and connection. Through the voices of those who knew her, the coroner investigating her end, her father wrestling with grief and guilt, neighbors and strangers alike, we glimpse how one life radiates outward into countless others, leaving ripples that never fully dissipate. Masters employs the epitaph form to devastating effect here, each poem a testimony that reveals as much about the speaker as about the departed. The result is not merely a murder mystery or sentimental elegy, but an examination of how society shapes and constrains individuals, particularly women, and how those constraints can prove fatal. The 'inquiry' into Elenor's death becomes a judgment not just of one woman's circumstances, but of an entire system's weight upon the living.