Facing the Wind: A True Story of Tragedy and Reconciliation

Read and re-read. Thought provoking novel.

Julie Salamon is a fine journalist. The Devil's Candy is one of the best behind-the-scenes books ever written about Hollywood movie-making. She has the rare ability to observe and narrate the details of what is happening without ever intruding upon the facts by pushing her personal opinions at the reader. That is also true of this highly affecting tale, even though Salamon herself is actually involved in the final portion of the book. I found Facing The Wind fascinating but heavy-going. I don't think there was any other possible way for the author to get the story told, and to compel us to consider the horror inherent in knowing a man who, in the depths of emotional anguish and extreme mental turmoil, killed his family. In examining this "life after death," Salamon puts a positively biblical dilemma on the table for us to consider: Does a man who takes the lives of his family while mentally ill have the right to a "second" life upon returning to a sane state? Does he have the right to practise law? And how/why does a young woman not only marry this man but live with the truth of what he's done? The first section, dealing with the parents of blind and/or disabled children is informative, harrowing and inspiring; everyone comes fully to life, which is why the second and third parts of the book work so well: because we've been fully introduced to all the people and their children. We've also had a crash course in the monstrous difficulties encountered as the parent(s) of disabled children.This is a book that will have you debating with yourself for hours, even days after you've finished. It is a very important book, not only because it offers in-depth insight into just how hard it is to be one of those parents, but also because it helps put "normal" parenting into a different perspective--just possibly making us feel that much luckier at having "whole" children.Most highly recommended.

This is another mesmerizing study of the psychology of human beings and the strange, confounded, surprising things they sometimes do. It is similar to The Adversary in that both men killed their families "out of the blue", but this book is much more of a journalistic study and asks real questions, all revolving around the single word "Why?"The author Julie Salamon is a journalist of the highest order. She tells a shocking story in a straight-forward manner which makes it seem even more shocking. This is about a lawyer, a family man who was loved and respected, raising three young children, one of them severely handicapped. He came unstrung one day and killed all the kids and his wife. He served 2 years, then was released and tried to get his law license back, married and had another child. It is chilling. There are many people involved in this story, not the least of which are a group of mothers brought together by their children's handicaps.The book reads like the best of mysteries, the best of medical/psychological journals, the best of true crime, the best of those shocking articles we read in our newspapers about "ordinary" people . . . I wish there were photos in the book. I am sure all involved looked like "regular people". This story is presented in so many layers, that when I finished the book I felt like plunging ahead in research, hoping against reason to find some answers. The book is a page-turner to say the least! It is a great book. It deserves a larger audience. I read it in two nights because I couldn't put it down. Now, I feel I have nothing to do, nothing to read that will compare with the emotions I felt while reading this book.

This book is very haunting in its so detailed description of mental illness at its very core. There is no morality question to be answered here. I feel had he lived, Robert Rowe would have gone on & found a reason to kill his second wife & child. When you look at the horrific crime he committed, you are looking at what he did from a 'logical mind', with mental illness there is never logic. Go read case files & histories on mental patients who are in Forensic Centers for committing the same or similar horrific crimes & you will begin to understand Robert Rowe much better. The tragedy here is the state of New York & how he was able to leave that Forensic Center. He should have been there for life as are others who have committed such horrific crimes. Julie Salamon did an excellent job in her information gathering for her book. I am still haunted by this tragic story after having read the book. Hopefully the right state officials in New York read this book.

This book especially touched me. I have been a wife/mother in a similar support group and was also seen as a shining example of "handling it" so well when, in fact, my husband wasn't coping well at all and the outside world only saw the thin veneer he chose to show them. Eventually I left that husband and focused on keeping my children hopeful and stable. This book brought back so many feelings and made me revisit the "secret" lives of those who live with the tragedies of their childrens problems. This is a true account of what goes on inside the homes of too many families facing the unending grief of making their child's life worth living while trying to cope with the torments of inner and outer life day-to-day. This book will stay with me for a very long time, I'm certain.

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.