Dear Literary Loves,
Greetings one and all. I haven't written a memoir review in ages because I have been busy trying to take my own memoir manuscript and transition it from its doc file and place it into a print publishing template. I thought my nervous system might in fact leave my body, jump on a broom and take flight encircling my apartment complex while attempting to accomplish this task. Next, I thought okay, sure, now I'll just take the manuscript from the doc file and transfer it to an e-book publishing template. I tried reading the directions for how to accomplish this task and quickly started hyperventilating after the first three sentences. Fortunately, my tech wizard husband noticed my crisis and assured me he knew how to take my memoir manuscript and format it to an e-book! I've selected the cover art for the book cover and located an artist to complete the book cover so now I'm working on the marketing materials I will use to promote the book. And people think the hard part of publishing is writing the book! No folks, that part was easy; it's the formatting and cover art that is about to push me over the edge into a panic attack. No worries though, I just ordered several newly released memoirs and decided to read them. The first one I selected is Visiting Hours: A Memoir of Friendship and Murder by Amy Butcher.
This memoir pricked my interest because it is based on a true story. The author goes to college and meets a guy with whom she establishes a friendship. They are both from small towns and they both attend Gettysburg College. This is the college where one of the major Civil War battles was fought. According to the author, the college site is where over 22,000 Confederate soldiers died along with over 17,000 Union soldiers. And supposedly, some 6,000 dead soldiers bodies still lie underground where this college was built. It gave me the creeps just thinking about it; I mean, excuse me, but's that a lot of souls and sacred ground. Anyway, the author's friend, Kevin, who she believes she has much in common with and who she spends a great deal of time with, eventually escorts her back to her apartment one evening and then returns to his own apartment where he then kills his girlfriend by stabbing her twenty seven times and then sits by her body for twenty minutes before calling the police for help. I remembered hearing about this epic event on the news so naturally, I wondered what this author would say regarding what really happened to cause this friend of hers to essentially "lose it".
Eventually, the reader learns that the author, Amy, stays in contact via letters with her friend Kevin who just murdered his girlfriend. None of the other friends in their cohort remain in touch with Kevin, but this girl does. So the question I begin to ask myself are why would she remain in contact with him and what caused this guy to become so broken-minded that he kills his girlfriend? Amy, the author, appeared to have grown up being quite a compassionate individual. Even during national tragedies like Columbine and Matthew Shepard's death, she would write sympathy notes to families of the victims. Since Amy grew up in a small, isolated and rural town, she never really knew violent tragedy and she has a compelling need to comfort others. I believe she also wondered if whatever caused her friend Kevin to "lose it" could also cause her to also lose control as well. As a result of the tragedy, she loses trust in men, experiences post traumatic stress disorder, fears for own safety, and wonders if there was anything she or their group of friends could have done to prevent Kevin from murdering his girlfriend.
The reader eventually learns that Kevin had attempted suicide during a semester when Amy was a foreign-exchange student. Kevin is hospitalized and diagnosed with major depression with suicide ideation. The author learns this from a peer that goes to college with her and Kevin and who sends her an email to inform her of the situation. When she returns to Gettysburg College, she and Kevin never discuss his attempted suicide or depression or mental illness. And really, as far as I can tell, none of their peers discuss the matter with him either. It leaves the author wondering if she should have seen what was happening to her friend, spoken with him about what he had done and about his depressive state. And she often wonders, how come he didn't kill her that night, but instead later killed his girlfriend? What the author didn't know is that her friend Kevin had been taking a significant dosage of the antidepressant Sinequan and because he didn't like the way it made him feel, he decided to suddenly stop taking the drug cold turkey. This can cause a person major anxiety, agitation and can potentially lead a person to become manic and prone to suicide as well as violent behavior or at least that's what I gained from reading this book. Kevin was actually going to kill himself that night, but his girlfriend tried to stop him from stabbing himself with a kitchen chef's knife when he suddenly turned the knife on her. Interestingly, there was never a trial. Kevin pleaded guilty and took a plea deal to eliminate the possibility of life in prison and instead the plea deal mandated he serve twenty seven to fifty years in prison.
This whole ordeal leads the author to question if you ever really know someone as well as you think you do and also was there anything that could have been done to prevent this tragedy from happening? Personally, I thought there were some signs he might have some kind of potential problem. He certainly was fascinated with the violent history associated with Gettysburg College. At one point he refers to the coffee in nearby Lincoln Diner as tasting like death. (At this point as a reader I was thinking, how does he know what death tastes like and why would he refer to the coffee tasting that way?) Also, he brought his PlayStation gaming device to college and engaged in violent video games. And at one point when the author is living in a house on campus where people reside who have dedicated whole rooms to symbolic folks of the Civil War, Kevin actually picks up a bayonet and "plays" as if he is going to stab the author with it. These would have all been red flags to me along with the suicide attempt.
I don't know if anyone could have prevented Kevin from deciding to stop taking his medication and if he knew about the accompanying side effects of ceasing the medication abruptly. I do wonder what doctor was monitoring him while he was taking this medication and was he assigned a doctor to work with after his suicide attempt? Was there a doctor on campus that was following his case? It all just goes to demonstrate that mental illness is a rampant problem in this country and there are many folks around us who suffer with a form of mental illness and we don't even know it. It's also a powerful reminder to watch the actions, attitudes, and interests of those around us because those can be indicative of a person's nature, focus and intentions. Or at least these have proved invaluable to me when it comes to who I hold close in my life, who I keep at arm's length, and who I won't have anything to do with period.
Till my next read.
Grace
(Amy)
No comments:
Post a Comment