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Title: Facing the Wind: A True Story of Tragedy and Reconciliation by Julie Salamon ISBN: 0-375-75940-9 Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 09 April, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.78 (49 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Book That Stays With You
Comment: Not many stories, real or imagined, grip a reader like Julie Salamon's "Facing The Wind." I knew where the story would end - or so I thought. The murder is revealed on the book jacket, but the tale really lies in whether or not Bob achieves forgiveness and repentance. Does he deserve the second life he finds with his wife, clearly a damaged soul herself? What responsibility is shared by the doctors who released Bob and failed to monitor his intake of psychotropic drugs? How can we, The Moral Reader, react when a man who murders his family, including a helpless, disabled boy, declares he cannot feel remorse since he was mentally disturbed when the act was committed but at the same time declare his love for the dead?
This is a difficult story to read, and it is equally difficult to let it go. Salamon paints a portrait of a family that showed one face to the world, and another to itself. How many of us do the same? The sad details of Mary's clothing when she died and the aiming of the blows to prevent pain linger as the reader struggles to decide what kind of man Bob really is.
There are questions left unanswered in this telling, but the final image of a young girl who adores her daddy reveals the complex nature of the emotion humans call love. Just how much of love is forgiveness?
I disagree with the readers who state that interviews with Bob were required. Salamon gathers her facts via those who knew Bob best. The story is not really about Bob, but about those around him. Their perception, as the saying goes, is the reality.
Salamon captured my attention with "The Devil's Candy," and I look forward to more of her literary non-fiction.
Rating: 4
Summary: Gripping True Crime
Comment: Julie Salamon's Facing the Wind is a gripping true crime work that tells the heartbreaking story of a man who murders his wife and three children (one of them being severely disabled) and is subsequently found not guilty by reason of insanity. Bob and Mary Rove were the perfect couple, everyone loved them. Even when their second son Christopher is born with serious disabilities, Bob and Mary were a terrific couple. Bob was incredibly supportive of Christopher and worked hard to help him develop. Somewhere along the way, though, something in Bob snapped. He sought help, but found none and wound up murdering his family with a baseball bat. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and ultimately was given another chance to find happiness. Did he deserve it? Was the insanity defense proper in his case? Should someone else have seen this coming? Should he had been able to continue to practice law? Those and other moral questions will certainly run through your mind as you read this work. For the most part, Facing the Wind is a gripping and engaging work. My only complaint is that Salamon spends much more time than necessary focussing on a support group that Bob and Mary belonged to. She details the lives of the members of the group and the problems they encountered with their children. I realize that the group was the way Salamon connected with the story in the first place, but the sections concerning the support group could have used a little editing. Despite that one drawback, this is an interesting and thought-provoking work.
Rating: 1
Summary: Shame on Salamon and the NYT Book Review, too!
Comment: Extremely irresponsible journalism. Salamon failed to do complete research and ended up painting a one-sided picture, omitting so many facts and so much information that it is impossible to glean any real understanding of the people involved in this story. What I find even worse, though, is that this book is marketed to families of medically involved children thanks to its handy premise that the stress of raising such a child can cause an otherwise good man to snap, with tragic results. What an exploitative way to make a few bucks (and, hopefully, just a few)! Nobody---least of all the author---seems to know what was wrong with Bob Rowe. Was he schizophrenic? Bi-polar? A sociopath? Whatever his malady, I am quite sure it was not the stress of raising a disabled son that propelled him into homicidal mania. Yikes. Shame on Salamon, and the New York Times Book Review, too.
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Title: The Adversary: A True Story of Monstrous Deception by Emmanuel Carrere, Linda Coverdale ISBN: 0312420609 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: January, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Heart Full of Lies: A True Story of Desire and Death by Ann Rule ISBN: 0743202988 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 14 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Last Time They Met, The by Anita Shreve ISBN: 0316781266 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 22 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Empty Nursery: The Disappearance of Haley Hardwick by Jaclyn Weldon White ISBN: 0865547653 Publisher: Mercer University Press Pub. Date: August, 2001 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod by Maria Flook ISBN: 0767913744 Publisher: Broadway Books Pub. Date: 24 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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