Facing the Wind: The True Story of Family Tragedy and Reconciliation

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Summary: Love, Grace, forgiveness....in a true crime story
Review: How would any of us react if someone we thought we knew well, a respected member of our community, suddenly beat his family to death with a baseball bat? And how would we react if we knew he'd remarried years later and started a new family? As riveting as these questions may be, they are only part of what made this book so fascinating to me. What made it unforgettable was how it made me think about the limits of love and forgiveness and how several families were put to the test in circumstances as horrendous as this. Please be aware that this is NOT your usual true crime book, although it is based on true events and the writer does try to make sense of a crime most of us would consider senseless- the murder of 4 members of a family, the Rowes, by the husband/father of that family, a man considered by friends and neighbors to be a loving and attentive parent and spouse. But it goes beyond the murder to give a riveting, detailed portrait of several families and how they lived both before and after this crime tore apart their community. These families had one thing in common - all of them had children with physical or emotional disabilities and the mothers in those families belonged to a support group. The author of this book, Julie Salamon, shows how each person was affected by the challenge of having a handicapped child and how they turned to the Rowes for guidance and inspiration. While some readers might find this part of the book irrelevant and even tedious, I did not. It not only made me think about the unusual stresses faced by families who have children with special needs but it revealed the Rowe family through the eyes of those closest to them. The Rowes were seen as role models and ideals, a family that was dealing with their disabled son as best they could, even better than many others would. The supposed stability of this family is what makes the murders so much more shocking and the author of this book doesn't hesitate to reveal the events leading up to the murder and the spiraling depression that overwhelms Bob Rowe. But she doesn't stop there. She goes on to show his life after institutionalization, his remarriage and eventual death - and then the meeting of his 2nd wife and the women who'd been close to his first wife. Many of them are still angry, baffled and judgmental. I won't reveal the ending of this book to you but will say if you have the willingness to stick with this one, I think you'll find it will force you to think about grace and forgiveness in even the worst circumstances. I admit I'm not sure I don't understand a man like Bob Rowe but I'll never forget him or his family and I'll be thinking about this book and the issue it raised for a long time.

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Summary: This book is blowing but good
Review: I found this book to be well written but disturbing in its tone and analysis or lack thereof. I find the author's tone to be too forgiving of Mr. Rowe- the real victims, his children, first wife and those whose lives were touched by them have little voice in this book. Mr. Rowe is treated as though he was the victim because of his handicapped child, which is the real tragedy. I also found there to be too much emphasis in the book on Mr. Rowe's second wife Colleen, who appears to be more deranged and need of psychiatric help than Mr. Rowe. The true heroes in this book are the Brooklyn mothers. The sick "love story" in the second half of this book should be for reserved for fans of Inside Edition.

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Summary: Truly Great Journalism
Review: I have to think that the negative reviews for this book were written by someone with an axe to grind against the author, because this book is NOTHING if not BRILLIANT, MOVING, and MASTERFULLY EXECUTED. WOW! What a great piece of journalism. It kept me up all night reading and reading until I got to the end and then it stuck with me for days. So many issues are elegantly addressed by this book -- mental illness, justice, forgiveness, love, raising a child with disabilities. So many ambiguities. Do we forgive Bob Rowe or should we feel diminished that he's not languishing in prison for his crimes? Or somehow should we do both? My congratulations to the author for a deft portrait of an insane murderer and a marvelous telling of this sad tale.

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Summary: Outstanding read
Review: I found this to be a true story of redemption and reconciliation just as the NYTimes reported. It was well written and I felt all the characters were well examined. Mental illness is an area that needs so much more exploration and kindness. Robert Rowe was an intelligent man that was tightly wound and eventually he snapped. Was he sick, absolutely, was he treated fairly by the system-yes in the sentence but not by the mental health professionals. It points out to me how sad the system worked in the 70's. I would hope it is much better now. The author did what I thought was a terrific exploration of all facets of Robert's life preceeding the killings and after as he tried to search for peace of mind and soul.

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Summary: I've Been Had
Review: One would think that a book that was given such generous coverage, not to mention a favorable review in The New York Times Book Review would be worth reading. One would be dead wrong. I've been had! What an unforgivable mess was made of an essentially provocative and dramatic human tragedy - Facing the Wind was so poorly written and excecuted that I couldn't even bring myself to care for the victims. That is the real tragedy. I think the reading public has been had by insider nepotism. As a writer for the Times, Julie Salamon enjoyed more than her fair share of exposure. This book and their susquent review does not bode well at all for my future readership or their claims of independent and fair criticism. If Facing the Wind served any purpose at all, it is to expose to ridicule the practices of favoritism that litter the literary scene.

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Summary: facing the wind
Review: Insulting. Very, very poorly written, haphazardly thought out, carelessly drawn, pointlessly plodding and distracted. In every way that a writer can go wrong this writer does, and the end result is a terrible, uncrafted, frustrated and pointless book. Be Warned!

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Summary: Mother's Group
Review: Although the main topic emphasized in the advertisement of this book is murder, to me the outstanding feature is about a group of women, mothers, who survived despite the problelms they encountered. It validates the fact that we all need one another. I know it is all factual. Read it and you will learn about humanity in the face of tragedy.

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Summary: Facing the Wind
Review: I went into this book thinking it was just another true crime story, but found something else. I found myself crying for the fate of the Rowe children, but also the struggles of the mothers in the support group. But it wasn't depressing because of all the twists and turns in the story.

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Summary: I couldn't put the book down.
Review: This is a poignant and haunting page-turner that kept me up at night. Long after I finished reading the book, I couldn't stop thinking about it -- the people, the issues it raised. What would I do and how would I react? Do we deserve to be forgiven? Can we forgive ourselves for our wrongs? I highly recommend Facing the Wind.

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Summary: Well written but way off the mark
Review: 4 people were murdered yet we're supposed to accept Bob Rowe becuase he was "reborn" after a 2 year country club stay in a psychiatric hospital. Julie Salamon has come through with a well written book but the focus is way off target. There is not enough emphasis on the lives of the murdered ones. Instead, Salamon chooses to focus on the "love story" between the non repentent Rowe and the obviously deranged and damaged second wife. The absense of actual testimony from Rowes surving brother makes the whole book suspect and unreliable in terms of fact. This book should not have been written without gathering all the facts but its still worth reading from a fictional standpoint.