Monday, June 09, 2008

Janeology

Readers have so often heard that a novel has been “ripped from the headlines” that the phrase has by now become little more than a cliché. But anyone living in Houston, or anywhere in the state of Texas, for that matter, in the last few years will most certainly recognize the headlines from which Janeology was ripped. The Andrea Yates trial, which did become a national story of some magnitude thanks to several trashy television programs that milked it for all it was worth to their bottom lines, was one that Texans, especially Houstonians, lived with on an almost-daily basis for months on end.

Like the real life Andrea Yates, Jane Nelson decides that she has had enough of being a mother to her children and chooses to drown them in the family home while her husband is at work. Unlike Yates, she is not entirely successful and one of her toddler twins, a daughter, manages to survive the experience of being held underwater in the kitchen sink until her mother thought she was dead.

When the jury reaches probably the only conclusion that anyone could reasonably expect from them, Tom Nelson is left alone to struggle with the emotions of losing his only son, and his wife, and must deal with his daughter’s slow recovery. Some men finding themselves in Tom’s position might have turned to religion to help them through such a personal crisis; Tom sarcastically rejected religion and turned to the bottle instead. And that was before he even found out just how bad things would get for him when prosecutors decided to charge him with child endangerment for not having recognized that his wife’s mental condition made her a threat to the safety of their children.

Initially skeptical of the defensive strategy devised by his lawyer - that Jane’s inability to fully bond with or to nurture her children is a trait passed to her from one generation of her family to the next, a fact no one could expect him to have been aware of - Tom is reluctant to even listen to the clairvoyant brought in to research Jane’s family tree. But as evidence mounts that Mariah is truly connecting with Jane’s key ancestors, and Tom learns more and more about the woman he still loves, what happened in his kitchen starts to make some kind of sense to him despite the fact that he still feels tremendous guilt for not having saved his children from the ordeal they suffered.

Now it is only a question of what the jury will think of his lawyer’s theory. Will Tom spend the next few years in jail rather than with the little girl that needs him so badly in her life? Will his knowledge of Jane’s background allow him to shake the self-imposed guilt that he feels about his failure to recognize her mental state? How will his daughter cope with the knowledge that her mother killed her brother and tried to kill her?

Karen Harrington’s story of one woman who reached her breaking point is a thought provoking look at the influence, both good and bad, that past generations can have on the present. The theory that a combination of genetics and little or no nurturing from their own parents can explain why some women lack the maternal instinct to protect their children, and even have the ability to destroy those children themselves, while other women will gladly give their own lives to protect their own, is not a new one. But Harrington presents her case in Janeology in such a convincing and entertaining fashion that the theory will make those who read this book wonder a bit the next time the headlines are filled with a story about yet another mother killing her children. And we all know that, sadly, there will be a next time.

Rated at: 4.0

14 comments:

  1. This book looks interesting. The Yates case was horribly fascinating...Although Andrea committed the crimes, I always wondered about her husband: Why was he so dense, continuing to impregnate her when she had a documented history of PPD?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't know if I could read this book without wanting to throw it across the room, screaming, "I don't care what your childhood was like! It doesn't give you an excuse to kill your own children!"

    ReplyDelete
  3. This book does look interesting, as well as deeply disturbing. I can't fathom a mother hurting her own children. There has to be some mental illness involved. Like Bybee, I too wondered about the father in the Andrea Yates. At one point they were living in a bus, and she was pretty much alone taking care of all those kids. I guess it's easy to place blame, but it doesn't do anything to bring those kids back. We need to do a better job preventing this. But, I really don't know how.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I thought this book was really interesting, too, although the whole psychic thing irritated me. What did you think of it, Sam?

    I do tend to agree with class-factotum - people have their own agency, and shouldn't be able to use their crappy childhoods as excuses for their heinous actions. Of course, I had a very nice, normal childhood, so maybe that's an easy thing for me to say ...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bybee, most people did wonder about her husband. He did not exactly cover himself in glory during the marriage or after the murder of his children. IMO, if any husband in this kind of situation should have ever been charged with endangering the lives of his children, it was this bird.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I can understand that feeling, factotum. That kind of thing just goes against every decent instinct that any of us have and we can't accept it. It is hard to forgive someone of that sin regardless of the personal circumstances used to explain it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Lisa, I started to tune the whole Yates trial out long before it was over because I found it so disgusting and disturbing. I was starting to spend way to too easily visualize the murders in my mind...made me very uncomfortable.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Susan, the "spiritualist" thing bothered me a bit at first before I came to think of it as a just a device the author used to supply all the historical detail that made the book so interesting. I did wonder how it could have been accepted in a court of law as evidence...but I decided to suspend my disbelief and enjoy the novel for the story it told and not sweat the legal details. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  9. I so wanted to see Rusty? Yates at least arrested for 4th degree murder.

    I so do not want to find this book interesting but I'm afraid I'll buy it if I see it.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I found myself feeling the same way about Mr. Yates, Carrie...exactly the same way.

    The husband in this novel is no Mr. Yates, though...much more of a sympathetic character, although the crime is as horrific as the Yates murders.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I've got this one sitting on my nightstand and hope to read it within the month. Great review, now I'm more anxious than before to start.

    ReplyDelete
  12. It really makes you think, Natasha, about the husband's role in this kind of crime. I know it would all have to be considered on a case-by-case basis, but I suspect that some husbands share more than a little bit of guilt in the murders of their children by their mother.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I live only two blocks from the Yates's former home. I also have eight children. So this case hit very close to home. I thought then and still think that it's much more complicated than Andrea was overwhelmed and Rusty was negligent. Or Andrea was evil and Rusty was oblivious. All of us are sometimes overwhelmed, but mostly we don't do anything like what Andrea did. And I hate to say it, but most husbands are sometimes dense, but they can't be expected to prevent a tragedy like the murder of the Yates children. I don't know how he could have known what was going to happen, and I don't think there is any one "right" way to respond to such an overwhelming tragedy.

    It's a very, very sad thing, and I still think about those children every time I pass their house, nearly every day. I don't think I could make it through Janeology.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Sherry, thanks for your thoughtful comments. Janeology hits on some of the same points and makes you think about both parents and their responsibilities in cases like these.

    As for Rusty, I do think he should have seen it coming to a greater degree than he did and that he might have been able to prevent what happened. Of course, no one would want to believe that of a spouse and it must be hard to convince yourself that it could actually happen.

    ReplyDelete

I always love hearing from you guys...that's what keeps me book-blogging. Thanks for stopping by.