Scan barcode
A review by additionaddiction
Echoes in the Darkness by Joseph Wambaugh
3.0
The real life story of the murder of an Upper Merion Pennsylvanian school teacher, the disappearance of her two children, and the teachers and principal who were involved.
I've lived in Pennsylvania basically my whole life and have lived in the Main Line area for the last 16ish years. Still, I never heard about this story until a few months ago when it was mentioned to me by a coworker who went to this school while these events were unfolding.
This book made more references than Archibald Cox Jr., and if you don't get that reference you're probably not going to get 90% of the other references in this book. Still, this is truly a crazy story, made even more crazy (to me at least) by the constant references to places, stores, schools, and roads that I drive past almost daily (at least, pre-pandemic).
The cast of characters is so bizarre that it almost feels like fiction. I think part of that can be chalked up to Wambaugh's almost tabloid-like style of writing. Everything felt overly sensational with too much detail being spent on the subjective appearance of people. e.g.
"Susan was even more petite than Sue Myers, and was definitely not attractive. She wore oversized glasses with dark plastic rims, an effect that accentuated a large blunted nose. Her lower lip protruded, pushed out by big gapped incisors."
In fact, several passages were pretty much racist in their descriptions. e.g.
"He was a smallish, ethnic-looking guy. You figured he'd spent his life eating deli food, but you weren't sure which deli."
This book was published in 1987, so I'm willing to give a little leeway based on the time in which it was written. Still, it's a tough read in 2021. That being said, the actual facts of this story were captivating enough to keep me invested until the end.
I've lived in Pennsylvania basically my whole life and have lived in the Main Line area for the last 16ish years. Still, I never heard about this story until a few months ago when it was mentioned to me by a coworker who went to this school while these events were unfolding.
This book made more references than Archibald Cox Jr., and if you don't get that reference you're probably not going to get 90% of the other references in this book. Still, this is truly a crazy story, made even more crazy (to me at least) by the constant references to places, stores, schools, and roads that I drive past almost daily (at least, pre-pandemic).
The cast of characters is so bizarre that it almost feels like fiction. I think part of that can be chalked up to Wambaugh's almost tabloid-like style of writing. Everything felt overly sensational with too much detail being spent on the subjective appearance of people. e.g.
"Susan was even more petite than Sue Myers, and was definitely not attractive. She wore oversized glasses with dark plastic rims, an effect that accentuated a large blunted nose. Her lower lip protruded, pushed out by big gapped incisors."
In fact, several passages were pretty much racist in their descriptions. e.g.
"He was a smallish, ethnic-looking guy. You figured he'd spent his life eating deli food, but you weren't sure which deli."
This book was published in 1987, so I'm willing to give a little leeway based on the time in which it was written. Still, it's a tough read in 2021. That being said, the actual facts of this story were captivating enough to keep me invested until the end.