If you’ve spent any time on Hulu or Max lately, you’ve probably seen the blood-spattered laundry room. You’ve seen Jessica Biel or Elizabeth Olsen swinging an axe. But before the prestige TV era turned the Wylie, Texas, tragedy into a streaming commodity, there was the evidence of love book. Written by journalists John Bloom and Jim Atkinson, this isn't just a true crime paperback you grab at an airport. It is a terrifyingly granular autopsy of a suburban nightmare that actually happened on June 13, 1980.
Most people think they know the story. Bored housewife has an affair, gets caught, and flips out. That’s the "TikTok version." The reality found in the pages of Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs is far more uncomfortable. It’s a book about the stifling pressure of 1970s church culture and how a woman who seemingly had everything—a nice house, two kids, a "good" husband—could end up striking her friend 41 times with a wood-splitting tool.
It's a heavy read. Honestly, it’s a bit haunting because it refuses to make Candy Montgomery a simple villain.
Why the Evidence of Love Book Still Disturbs Us Today
Texas in the late seventies was a specific kind of world. Bloom and Atkinson do this incredible job of setting the stage of the Methodist church community in Lucas and Wylie. It wasn't just about religion; it was the entire social fabric. When you read the evidence of love book, you start to realize the affair between Candy Montgomery and Allan Gore wasn't some grand, romantic "Notebook" style romance. It was bureaucratic.
They literally sat down and weighed the pros and cons. They discussed logistics like they were planning a corporate merger.
The authors spent years interviewing the actual players, including Candy herself and the lawyers involved. Because of that access, the book feels less like a tabloid and more like a sociological study. It asks a question that most true crime avoids: Can a "normal" person just snap? Or was the "snap" decades in the making?
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The Forensic Detail of the 41 Whacks
Let’s talk about the axe.
In the TV shows, the violence is stylized. In the book, it’s clinical and horrifying. Bloom and Atkinson don't shy away from the physics of what happened in Betty Gore’s utility room. They describe the struggle in a way that makes your skin crawl. You learn about the "overkill." In forensic psychology, 41 hits isn't just a murder; it’s a release of something deeply repressed.
The defense team, led by Don Crowder, used a hypnotist. That sounds like a plot point from a bad 80s movie, right? But the book documents the sessions where Candy reportedly revisited a childhood trauma involving a "shushing" mother. The argument was that Betty Gore shushing Candy during the fight triggered a dissociative state.
Whether you believe that or not—and many in Wylie definitely didn't—the book lays out the legal strategy that led to one of the most controversial "not guilty" verdicts in Texas history.
The Fallout That the Cameras Missed
When a trial ends, the news crews pack up. The evidence of love book sticks around for the aftermath.
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What happened to Allan Gore? He remarried quickly, which the book touches on, and the ripple effects on the children involved are devastating. Betty Gore wasn't just a victim in a court case; she was a woman struggling with postpartum depression and a failing marriage, stuck in a house she hated. The book gives her a voice that the trial often tried to silence.
If you're looking for a hero, you won't find one here.
Jim Atkinson and John Bloom (who later became famous as the drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs) didn't write a "whodunit." We know who did it. They wrote a "how-could-they."
Comparing the Book to 'Love & Death' and 'Candy'
It’s weird seeing your favorite true crime book turned into two different miniseries within two years. Candy on Hulu went for a stylized, almost suburban-gothic vibe. Love & Death on Max felt more like a character study.
But both of them lean heavily on the research found in the evidence of love book. If you've watched the shows, you've seen the "greatest hits" of the trial. But the shows often skip the nuances of the local politics and the sheer weirdness of the Wylie community's reaction. The book explains why the town turned on the Gores as much as they did on the Montgomerys.
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It’s about the "shun."
Practical Insights for True Crime Readers
If you are going to dive into this story, don't just watch the shows. Reading the source material provides a level of context that 40-minute episodes can't touch.
- Look for the 2016 Reprint: The original 1984 edition is great, but newer editions often have updated afterwords that discuss the long-term impact of the case.
- Pay Attention to the Church Dynamics: The most interesting parts of the book aren't the murder; it’s how the church leadership handled the scandal. It’s a masterclass in institutional self-preservation.
- Question the "Dissociative" Narrative: Research modern views on "painless" trauma triggers. The book presents the 1980 perspective, but modern psychology has a lot more to say about the validity of the "shushing" trigger defense.
The evidence of love book remains a cornerstone of the genre because it refuses to give the reader an easy exit. It doesn't tell you how to feel. It just shows you the bloody footprint on the linoleum and asks you to imagine how it got there.
To truly understand the Candy Montgomery case, start by mapping out the timeline of the affair versus the timeline of Betty Gore's mental health struggles as detailed in the middle chapters. This comparison reveals the true tragedy: two women trapped in the same suburban cage, with only one of them walking out of it. Check your local library or digital archives for the original Texas Monthly articles by the same authors if you want the "raw" version of the reporting before it became a full-length manuscript.