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A review by melissabalick
Echoes in the Darkness by Joseph Wambaugh
2.0
So, yeah, I went to Upper Merion, the high school where the murder victim and one of the murderers taught and the other murderer was the principal. Lots of people did, and we all talked about reading this book, but really, barely anyone did. Mostly, we'd pass around video cassettes of the TV movie that was made from the book, and we thought we knew enough from that. We probably did know enough from it. I mean, I'm 29 at the time of this writing, and the murders had taken place three years before I was born. The only reason any of us wanted to read this book was to find out about the involvement of our current teachers in this dirty, dirty story. When I was in high school, there were four teachers who are in this book by name who I had as teachers. Two are spoken about in the book more thoroughly, two less so. The book certainly does not affect my opinion of any of them, except to help me to understand that good people can often survive intense scrutiny, although not without scars.
The story is so bizarre and sensational and ultimately mysterious that it's a wonder that so many people in the book continued on at Upper Merion. One of them was one of the best teachers I've ever had. I'm honestly hesitant to mention him by name, because I'd hate for him to come across this review by Googling his own name. I feel like his life was adversely affected enough by this grotesque and bizarre story without having to suffer Googling into the future.
It's interesting. It think that the same murders would not happen today, because women in general are less vulnerable than poor Susan Reinert was back in the late 70's. I like to think that today's women would be more onto William Bradfield's game and that, at the very least, she would not feel it was appropriate or necessary to open insurance policies that benefited her boyfriend upon her death before their relationship was even out in the open to friends and family and coworkers. I think Sue Meyers, one of Bradfield's other girlfriends, would have gotten hip to him much sooner and felt empowered to act in response as well. And, hell. EVERYONE in the book today would have had the internet to help them make decisions about any number of things. Back then, it was just too easy to manipulate people by being charming and convincing. You could completely isolate people, like that doctor in Rosemary's Baby who forbids Rosemary to read books about pregnancy. These days, Rosemary would at least be posting complaints on Facebook and all her friends would be weighing in on what they thought of her so-called doctor.
The book itself is... OK. It's sensational. It suffers from distasteful similes, such as "He knew very well that Sue Meyers was busier than a Gulag gravedigger." And, I know this book was for a mass audience and that mass audiences don't like to sit with ambiguity, but what is really upsetting about the story is that there is so much that is unknown, and that will never be known. It is not cut and dry who committed these murders, and how, or even why. The senselessness of it is where the tragedy lies most intensely. Even after reading the book, even if you agree with the juries and the author who were convinced of Bradfield and Smith's guilt, it still feels really uncertain. What the hell happened? Why, and how? There are good theories, but none of them feel exactly correct.
I agree with Wambaugh, I think the right people were convicted. But I'm not sure there's really much to get out of this book, or this story. It's a sad one, and I like a sad story. But this one is not rife with meaning; rather, it drowns in tragic meaninglessness.
The story is so bizarre and sensational and ultimately mysterious that it's a wonder that so many people in the book continued on at Upper Merion. One of them was one of the best teachers I've ever had. I'm honestly hesitant to mention him by name, because I'd hate for him to come across this review by Googling his own name. I feel like his life was adversely affected enough by this grotesque and bizarre story without having to suffer Googling into the future.
It's interesting. It think that the same murders would not happen today, because women in general are less vulnerable than poor Susan Reinert was back in the late 70's. I like to think that today's women would be more onto William Bradfield's game and that, at the very least, she would not feel it was appropriate or necessary to open insurance policies that benefited her boyfriend upon her death before their relationship was even out in the open to friends and family and coworkers. I think Sue Meyers, one of Bradfield's other girlfriends, would have gotten hip to him much sooner and felt empowered to act in response as well. And, hell. EVERYONE in the book today would have had the internet to help them make decisions about any number of things. Back then, it was just too easy to manipulate people by being charming and convincing. You could completely isolate people, like that doctor in Rosemary's Baby who forbids Rosemary to read books about pregnancy. These days, Rosemary would at least be posting complaints on Facebook and all her friends would be weighing in on what they thought of her so-called doctor.
The book itself is... OK. It's sensational. It suffers from distasteful similes, such as "He knew very well that Sue Meyers was busier than a Gulag gravedigger." And, I know this book was for a mass audience and that mass audiences don't like to sit with ambiguity, but what is really upsetting about the story is that there is so much that is unknown, and that will never be known. It is not cut and dry who committed these murders, and how, or even why. The senselessness of it is where the tragedy lies most intensely. Even after reading the book, even if you agree with the juries and the author who were convinced of Bradfield and Smith's guilt, it still feels really uncertain. What the hell happened? Why, and how? There are good theories, but none of them feel exactly correct.
I agree with Wambaugh, I think the right people were convicted. But I'm not sure there's really much to get out of this book, or this story. It's a sad one, and I like a sad story. But this one is not rife with meaning; rather, it drowns in tragic meaninglessness.