Internal Combustion: The Story of a Marriage and a Murder in the Motor City

Both as a "what-made-her-do-it?" investigation and as a searing cultural and family study of 3 generations of Detroit-area auto engineering people, Maynard relentlessly digs for truth and understanding of murderous rage that destroyed a prosperous family. I stayed up all night two nights in a row to finish it and was sad to see it end, but the book forced me to think hard about the catastrophic violence waiting to explode in so many feuding families -- and what causes the explosions to occur, as well as the consequences for the survivors. Regardless of how tranquil your world, you will be shaken by the story of what may have caused an award-winning 4th grade teacher to take a hatchet to her husband's head. The author's intermittent reflections on her own fascination with the story add extra poignancy and mirrored many of the questions I was asking myself about this fascinating case study of a seeming typical American upper middle class family. A real treasure.

While I don't think that Nancy Seaman should be out on the streets anytime soon, I can see where she would have been frustrated to the point of murder against her uncommunicative husband Bob. That said, my opinion is that Nancy did in fact premeditatively murdered him at the risk of losing what she thought was the American dream--marry well and live happily ever after. Both of the Seamans seemed to be selfish but I don't think Bob deserved to die for it either. And it's my opinion that Nancy was the controlling one, not Bob. It's just that he was unaware of how to truly be in a relationship with someone as needy as Nancy. She got fed up and when he asked for a divorce, she murdered him instead. She and Greg (and to a certain extent, her father) obviously lied to cover up the crime, or to mitigate it in order to keep her from being found guilty. I know a couple like the Seamans, and while they weren't as financially well off as the Seamans and their marriage ended in divorce instead of murder, no one really knew the truth until they divorced. The fact that the book contains a few inconsequential errors (at least according to some of the reviews here) doesn't matter. Joyce Maynard wrote a great book to try to understand what leads an award winning teacher to such extremes. It's too bad that some of the family and friends refused to cooperate. However, Maynard has written a compelling account of this crime.

The quality of Internal Combustion far exceeds that of 95% of true crime books out there. Ms. Maynard really did an outstanding job telling the story of Bob and Nancy Seaman. She definitely did her research, rather than filling the pages of her book with suppositions, and what came across most to me, was her effort to be fair in her analysis and presentation of this sad case. Ms. Maynard artfully intertwines the tragedy of the Seaman marriage with her own personal history, which makes for a thought provoking and insightful read. I really felt for Bob Seaman, it was so sad how he found this surrogate family who really seemed to love him for who he was, and that was something he never truly had with his own family.

Joyce Maynard's new book "Internal Combustion" is a gripping account of a most unusual murder and its aftermath. The locale is Detroit where murder is not unusual. What makes the story of the Seaman murder unusual is that the principles are successful in that unique American way of climbing from near rags to almost riches while seeming to most as a normal family. It is only after the murder that the family stress factors become obvious. Ms. Maynard, luckily for us, is much more than a casual observer and unlike our often sensational media, stays with the story until she nears full comprehension of what must have taken place. But discovering the truth of what happened is only the beginning for the author. From the start she wants also to divine why this particular tragedy occurred among the vast number of potential tragedies that hover over all of us. The core of the story is a brutal murder and the fracturing of a family. But the story as told also explores the lives of others involved in a way that enriches the narrative plus Ms. Maynard uses her reporter's eye to limn portraits of her surroundings that add depth and color. Many will compare "Internal Combustion" to "In Cold Blood" but while Capote's book was about random murder, Maynard's is about murder up close and as personal as it gets. I have seldom read a better book.