Are You There Alone?: The Unspeakable Crime of Andrea Yates

I'm sure most of us who've read this book are very familiar with this tragic case. Reading this was enlightening though. I learned so much about the case and the Yates family, and Andrea herself. A very thorough book that I highly recommend.

This book was amazing from stay to finish! I hated having to put the book down and start doing my adult duties that didn't involve being able to read my book! The author did a fantastic job writing the details in this true-crime piece.

This book will clear up a lot of things for people wo were/are interested in the Yates case. Much blame has been put on Rusty, her doctors, and her family. O'Malley has personally interviewed most parties involved and the picture that she paints is crystal clear: our mental health system is sorely lacking. I believe that for those in the camp that think she should have gotten the death penalty, this book will change their minds. It is clear that Andrea Yates should be under psychiatric supervision for the rest of her life, not in jail. Aside from a little skipping around that was confusing, O'Malley covers things chronologically, beginning with the drownings and ending with the uncertainty of the future for the Yateses. I was a bit taken aback when the author claimed that she "saved Andrea's life" herself, but apart from that, this book is excellent.

The sheer amount of detailed material Ms. O'Malley amassed is staggering enough. Add in her correlations, cross references, interlaced quotes and internal dialogs melded with incisive personality sketches and tied together with interviews and correspondence from scores of the large and small actors involved in this tragedy and the result is truly amazing.She quotes chapter and verse, but never preaches. She examines questions of integrity, conscience and ethics, but never moralizes. She gives us the material to come to the same logical conclusions she has drawn - but never makes them for us.Ms. O'Malley has painted horrific detail with humanity and compassion and managed to make us think deeply about such lightweight topics as mental health, the legal system, health care, mental medication, childcare, religion, family relationships and societal responsibilities while staying off the soapbox, eschewing histrionics and maintaining our interest - quite a feat.

When I first heard about Andrea Yates horrible crime I was living in Houston, and like most of my friends thought she was a cold blooded killer. I mean, it takes a while to drown five kids - how could she have done that? I figured at some point after the first or second you would have to comprehend what you were doing and STOP - how could she do all five? I am a mother (of only one, however) and I have been hospitalized for depression and bipolar and I know I couldn't do that to my child. But my illness was not nearly as severe as Mrs. Yates disease. This book dispels some of the rumors and puts Mrs. Yates into a more sympathetic light. Under Texas law, she knew that her acts were wrong, but, in her psychotic frame of mind, she beleived she was taking the best course of action available to her. This book makes a compelling argument for mental health care reform - if Mrs. Yates had received anything close to the kind of help she needed, her children would almost cetainly be alive today. If her problem had been physical rather than mental, her children would be alive and she would be a well woman. If anything, this book showed me that there are two sides to every coin, and that even though I myself have been the recipient of poor mental health care, it is still easy to blame the patient. This story has no clear cut right or wrong, but does show that health care in this country should be governed by the patients illness, not the amount of care their insurance will cover.

Psychology in general has always been interesting to me. I am getting my minor in Psychology currently. I was shocked and sad by the terrible, horrific story of the Yates children. This book was impossible to put down. I read the entire book in a day. The author does a wonderful job of telling the story and offering insights not all people are willing or capable of seeing. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants a better understanding of the case and the disturbing story. It does a wonderful job of making Mrs. Yates seem human and terribly, terribly let down by the psychological health system in the United States.

Have you noticed how it is that when you mention the name "Andrea Yates" people's jaws go slack? Wait 'til you read this book. It is SO good. Not sensationalized at all. It doesn't have to be. The facts are sensational enough. The author, Suzanne O'Malley, has used interviews with Yates by various psychiatrists,interviews with her husband, mother and dozens of others as well as the court transcripts and letters from Andrea Yates herself to the author to tell the story. Apparently, O'Malley is the only reporter to have carried on a correspondence with Yates from her cell in prison. (Would love to read the entire letters and not just the exerpts in the book - wow!) What I like, is that the writer does not intrude on the subject - it tells itself seemingly effortlessly. Just every now and then, like one of the classic tragedies - which surely this is - she will very subtly point out something that is so ironic or just plain stupid that you have to laugh out loud. Thank goodness! Anyway, It's terrific. The killing of her children was and is, of course unspeakable" but the depth of her understanding combined with the sensitivity of Yates's portrait makes this an extraordinary book. Read it. You won't be sorry. Truth is, after all, stranger than fiction.