BIO
David Dominé is a folklorist, cultural guide, and writer whose interests often tend toward the eccentric and obscure—especially when it involves his adopted hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. He has authored numerous short stories, translations, and poems, as well as recipe collections, paranormal books, mysteries, and memoirs that include his true-crime debut A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City. In it, he examines a notorious murder associated with the large house he almost purchased in a quirky Victorian neighborhood—and how the case affected residents on several different levels. His follow-up projects expand beyond Louisville, exploring broader patterns of secrecy and unresolved tragedy in places celebrated for their uniqueness.

Dominé is also the founder of a nationally recognized walking tour company specializing in local history, architecture, and off-beat destinations where public image often collides with reality. Both his tours and writing emphasize research and narrative clarity while challenging—and celebrating—the myths communities tell about themselves.

He has collaborated with journalists, playwrights, and filmmakers, and serves as the consulting voice on the HBO docuseries his book inspired, Murder in Glitterball City. He also makes frequent appearances in the film as a cast member. Dominé currently teaches and writes in Kentucky, but he spends a good portion of the year traveling and researching abroad.

                                                                                                                                                       Q & A

How does it feel to see your book adapted for HBO?

It feels humbling, more than anything. This story lived quietly on the page for a long time, and seeing it take on a new life through film has been both moving and a little surreal—but in a very grounded way. Writing A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City was an intensely solitary experience, while making a documentary is collaborative, so watching those two worlds meet has been very rewarding. I’m grateful for the care and patience the HBO and World of Wonder teams brought to the material, and for the people who trusted me with their stories in the first place. In a way, it feels less like a personal milestone and more like the narrative continuing to unfold, just in a different form.

You describe A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City as a true-crime memoir. How is that different from a straight true-crime book?

A straight true-crime book is usually focused on assembling facts, timelines, and evidence. A true-crime memoir still takes the factual events seriously, but it also acknowledges the presence of the writer—the questions, the uncertainties, and the emotional terrain of encountering the story up close. In  A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City, I’m not just reporting what happened; I’m examining how the case intersected with my own life, with the city, and with the people I met along the way. That perspective allows room for reflection and contradiction, rather than pretending there’s a single authoritative distance from the material.

Approaching the project with a memoiristic lens also gave me permission to follow the story where it wandered—down side streets, into digressions and tangents, and through the local quirks and textures of Louisville that shaped the larger narrative. Most important, it afforded an opportunity to have fun with the ambiguities, .explore the gray areas surrounding the case—those places where certainty breaks down and definitive answers don’t exist.

Memoir requires distance as well as immersion; it asks that enough time pass to allow for reflection, reconsideration, and a more honest reckoning with what’s known, what’s assumed, and what may never be resolved. Given that it took a decade to write the book, that space for looking back became essential to how I understood both the crime and its aftermath.


How has the city reacted to the book—and now the series?

Overall, the response has been very positive, in large part because many readers recognize that Louisville is being celebrated in the book. One reviewer even described A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City as a “love letter to Louisville,” which meant a great deal to me, because the city is, in many ways, the star of the book. At the same time, when you’re writing about real people and real lives, it’s inevitable that not everyone will be comfortable with the portrayals, or even with the fact that the story is being told at all. Though some might not agree, I’ve tried to approach those moments with respect, and I think most readers understand that my narrative comes from a place of affection for the city and its people.

In addition, readers and viewers have also appreciated that Jamie Carroll, the victim at the center of the story, has not been forgotten. True crime often drifts toward spectacle, and I was very conscious of resisting that as well as avoiding any hint of victim shaming. The goal was always to keep sight of the human cost of what happened, to remember that this isn’t just a mystery or a narrative, but a real tragedy that continues to matter.








Curious about this Old Louisville murder? New walking tour explores the mysterious case.
Maggie Menderski
Louisville Courier Journal
May 12, 2023

A corpse in the cellar. A history of grisly endings. Inside the Old Louisville murder house.
Maggie Menderski
Louisville Courier Journal
July 26, 2021