After suffering her own trauma, Dahlia Moscatelli has become a prisoner in her own home.  That doesn't mean she can't offer it as a refuge to others, though.  She and her husband, Louie, are already sheltering three long-term foster children.  When a social worker begs Dahlia to take in one more—a six-year-old who's been horribly abused and needs emergency placement—she hesitates.  Not only is Agnes Juniper a traumatized little girl with developmental delays, but she's also half Native American.  It's 1959 in small-town Massachusetts and the Moscatellis already have enough trouble with the neighbors over taking in so many kids.  When Dahlia meets Agnes, however, she caves.  The damaged youngster is in such obvious need that none of the Moscatellis can bear to turn her away.

It's clear from the get-go that Agnes' presence is about to change the lives of everyone in the Moscatelli household.  Over the next decade and a half, as they embrace the little girl and work together to love away her pain, the Moscatellis experience all the sorrows, challenges, and triumphs that define family life.  With one special girl at their center, all of them will find healing like they've never known before.

Describing All the Children Are Home by Patry Francis is difficult because the novel really doesn't have a plot.  The story meanders here and there as it details everything that happens when Agnes disrupts the Moscatellis' lives for the better.  Because the tale is so unfocused, it definitely sags in places.  Still, all in all, I found All the Children Are Home to be quite compelling.  The characters are sympathetic and likable, even if some of them (Dahlia and Louie in particular) are not exactly warm, fuzzy types.  Their story feels authentic.  It's sad, with a realistically untidy end, and yet, it's also a hopeful tale about the beauty of found family in all its complicated glory.  I liked the novel overall.

(Readalikes:  Reminds me of Fighting Words by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley)

Grade:

"I had my protective shell of funny talk and shyness, but underneath that lived a wilder me, a girl who would take punishment, and take it, and take it, but who would never let go of herself all the way, never completely surrender" (87).

Marjorie Richards knows all about fear. The 17-year-old can't go home without feeling it, she can't walk the school corridors without experiencing it and, now that teenage girls are disappearing in her rural New Hampshire community, she can't go anywhere at all without constantly looking over her shoulder. Marjorie's reclusive parents have always told her the outside world isn't safe - she's starting to believe them.

Unlike her parents, though, Marjorie can't hide out in the hills. She's required by law to attend school. Even though her classmates snicker about the way she talks, her teachers raise their eyebrows at her bruises, and more than one boy makes it clear what he wants from her, Marjorie craves the normality of it all. When she's hired to help Arturo "Sands" Ivers, a 24-year-old stranger in town, build a church, she spends even more time basking in the freedom of life away from her cruel parents. As intoxicating as it is to be out from under their constant supervision, Marjorie's afraid to step too far away from her mother and father. She pities them, but mostly she fears what they will do if she dares defy them. The paycheck she brings them every month may be the only thing that keeps them from killing her outright.

As Marjorie grows more comfortable with her job as an assistant stonemason - and with her inscrutable boss - she feels her confidence growing. But will it be enough to save her from her parents' escalating sadism? Or the vicious murderer, who may be closer to Marjorie than she knows? Will it be enough to rescue her from the squalid fate for which she seems destined? Or will she become just another victim - of poverty, of abuse, and of a violent killer?

(Readalikes: Reminds me a lot of Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell and a little of Blood Wounds by Susan Beth Pfeffer)

Grade: B

If this were a movie, it would be rated: R for mild language, sexual innuendo/content, and violence

When I was in high school, I attended a writer's conference at which I heard true crime writer Ann Rule speak. I found her so fascinating that I immediately checked out several of her books. Although gritty and raw, the books fascinated me, especially from a psychological point of few. Her experience with Ted Bundy (chronicled in her first book The Stranger Beside Me), especially, made an impact with its underlying question - How well can we ever really know the people around us? As compelling as her books are, their gruesome details soon got to be too much for me. I abandoned Rule years ago and never re-visited the genre she made popular. That is, until Hachette Book Group sent me a copy of After Etan by journalist Lisa R. Cohen. Like Rule's books, Cohen's is interesting and well-written (although Rule's style is less clinical, more readable), but also filled with so much human nastiness that it reminded me why I quit true crime books in the first place.

The book discusses the case of Etan Patz (pronounced AYTAHN PATES), a 6-year-old who disappeared from New York's SoHo neighborhood on May 25, 1979. The first-grader had been begging his mother all year to let him walk the 2 blocks to his bus stop. She had finally relented. But Etan never made it to school. He vanished, plunging his family - and parents all over the country - into a terrifying nightmare that jolted them out of their innocence. Suddenly, families became all too aware of the acute danger posed by sexual predators who preyed on children, an increasing problem that until then hadn't received enough attention. Fear made parents more vigilant - for a time, anyway. As the months wore on, all the Missing posters, neighborhood canvassing, televised pleas and police interviews came to naught. Blonde-haired blue-eyed Etan didn't turn up. Neither did his corpse.

As the case slowly went cold, new atrocities hit the news, burying the story of Etan's disappearance under fresh horrors. His parents still dutifully recorded every phone call they recevied, traipsed down to the police station for interviews and polygraphs, and investigated every "look alike" the detectives found, but one thing soon became obvious: The case was at a stand still. Federal prosecutor Stuart GraBois knew he couldn't let the case stagnate, couldn't let the Patzes down - determined to figure out what happened to Etan, he spent years in a dogged pursuit of the truth. After investigating several possible suspects, including the parents themselves, he honed in on a drifter with a history of violence toward children. GraBois refused to give up, even when Jose Antonio Ramos denied knowing Etan Patz. Although he never got a full confession out of Ramos, and never learned exactly what happened to the missing boy, the prosecutor's tenacious investigation of other of Ramos' victims put the dangerous predator away for the better part of his life. Maybe GraBois didn't crack the Etan Patz case wide open, but he did the next best thing - made sure Ramos could never again hurt a child. Without solid evidence to prove Ramos killed Etan, the child's case remains one of New York's unsolved mysteries.

Now, you're probably saying, "I guess there's no point in reading the book - Susan's just told me the whole plot." Well, that's correct, although the truth is that although this book chronicles the Etan Patz case, it's almost more about what happened because of the case: Because of Etan's disappearance, parents everywhere got a wake-up call about sexual predators. Because of his parents' ability to turn their own grief into something worthwhile, systems and laws were created that better protect and serve children. Because of young boys who bravely told their stories, a monster is behind bars. What started with man's inhumanity to man (although we don't know exactly what happened to Etan, we can assume it was nothing good) grew into something powerful, something important. It may have been too late to save Etan, but those whom he inspired have worked tirelessly to bring justice for all abused children. And that's what this story is really about.

Curiously, the thing I find most interesting about true crime stories - the psychological history of the perpetrator - was almost absent from After Etan. I think we all want to know what turns an innocent child into a person capable of committing unspeakable acts against another person. The book really didn't go into Ramos' history, which made the story seem incomplete. Maybe the investigators were just never able to turn up much information, but I would have liked to know (or maybe I'm better off not knowing) what made this guy tick. Other than that, I have no real criticisms. After Etan is certainly raw, it's definitely graphic, but it's also powerful and compelling. It's really a tribute to the dedication of law enforcement professionals, the bravery of victims courageous enough to speak out, and the plight of grieving families who allow their lives to be doubly torn apart in pursuit of justice. The fact that this book was published at all speaks volumes about the ability of one child to slip under our skin and into our hearts, pushing us harder to protect the most vulnerable among us - our children.

Grade: B

P.S. Interestingly, After Etan contains a couple of literary references. It includes a quote by Anna Quindlen, who worked for the New York Times between the late 1970s and early '90s. It also talks about Beth Gutcheon, who interviewed Julie Patz (Etan's mother) as part of her research for Still Missing. When the book came out, Julie was startled to find that the story mirrored her own so closely. Although she was grateful to Gutcheon for keeping the issue of missing kids in the spotlight, the novel "felt invasive to Julie, who also worried that readers would confuse the novel's fictional details - the disintegrating marriage of the boy's bereft parents, for example - with the real-life story of her family" (68). Interesting.

(Book image from After Etan's website)

Stand by Debbie Williamson is one of those books that make you want to grab your kids, hug them as hard as you can, and tell them how much you love them. Like Dave Pelzer's memoirs, Williamson's details a life of neglect, abuse and family dysfunctionality. Her story compels in the same way a roadside accident does - morbid curiosity makes us stare, empathy makes us shake our heads, and relief lets us flee, thanking God that we escaped similar tragedy.

Debbie's story begins long before her birth. Stand tells the stories of her mother and grandmother - two women who suffer from parental neglect as well as emotional and sexual abuse. The family's horrific "legacy" persists into Debbie's generation. Not only is she raped by a trusted uncle, but her mother ignores her, and both parents cheat on each other repeatedly. Her home life in shambles, Debbie turns to drugs, sex, and partying to fill up her life. Not surprisingly, she finds herself pregnant at 16.

Because it is "the right thing to do," the young couple marry. At first, Debbie adores her new life as a wife and mother. It's not long, however, before the union begins deteriorating. Joe turns to alcohol and prostitutes to escape the prison of married life. At home with her children all day, Debbie suffers from depression, which is only exacerbated by the daily insults Joe screams at her. Overwhelmed by both her past and her present, she loses control. When she owns up to how much time she's spending drinking, arguing with her husband, yelling at her kids, and sleeping around, Debbie realizes she's become the one thing she never wanted to be - her mother.

Finally at the end of her rope, Debbie enrolls in a kind of therapy boot camp. The program empowers her, giving her the strength to overcome her struggles. It doesn't make her life perfect, but it marks the beginning of a bright, new future.

On her website, Debbie explains that her original intention was to write out her experiences as a sort of journal for her children. Stand certainly reads more like a diary - with grammatical errors; fluctuating tense, shifting points of view; and lack of organization - than a polished book. Simple and heartfelt, Debbie's words do get the message across, just not with the panache of a well-written memoir. It also has a psychic/voices of the dead aspect that tarnishes the author's credibility - at least for those of us who don't believe in such things.


What I do admire about this book is Debbie's honesty. She explains on her website how reluctant she was to share her story with the world. Although she didn't want her family to suffer from the exposure of its dark secrets, she bravely took the risk. She doesn't sugarcoat her experiences or try to make herself look like the perfect wife and mother. Admittedly, she lays much of the blame for her family's dysfunctionality on the males, but she doesn't sugarcoat her own shortcomings either. She confesses that not all of her relationships have healed, but that through forgiveness, honesty and time, she's sure they will. The chapter on forgiveness particularly moved me. In Debbie's words:


He wasn't a monster to me anymore. Instead, he became a little person who had made a horrible mistake. I forgave him. I didn't have to ask God anymore how to forgive. I finally knew how (131).


Child abuse does not rank highly on my list of Favorite Subjects to Read About, so I haven't read a lot of books like Stand. I have no doubt there are better-written books on the subject. However, I don't regret reading this one. It could use some serious editing, but all in all, it's a pretty powerful little book.



Grade: B-




(Book Image from Barnes & Noble)