Category: MEMOIR

BLACK SHIELD

“The Black Shield” is a disjointed story that inexpertly reveals the truth of organizational discrimination in American society. Inequality based on sex and race is a fact of American life and most, if not all, nations of the world. Cooper’s story is not revelatory but a sad truth about human nature.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Black Shield (An American Memoir of Family and Power)

Author: Wilbert L. Cooper

Narration by: Wilbert L. Cooper

Wilbert L. Cooper (Author, graduate of Ohio University and New York University with a master’s degree in publishing.)

As a writer for national publications like The Guardian, The New York Times, and the Wall street Journal, Wilbur L. Cooper investigates a “2020 police killing” in his former hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. He profiles the president (Vincent Montague) of a Black police organization called Black Shield. Surprisingly, the leader of the Black police organization shoots a young unarmed Black man he thought would run him over. He is not charged. The shooting is ruled as justified and Montague is suspended for one-day for using poor tactics and unreasonable force. What Cooper reveals in “The Black Shield” is partly about Black discrimination despite recruitment that is presumably meant to reduce police force discrimination in Cleveland.

Police training is no joke despite it being often-represented humorously.

Cooper argues the long-standing pattern of hiring and promotion in Cleveland’s police force reinforces Black discrimination in its training and recruitment of both white and Black officers. To be promoted in the department, whether one is Black or white, is influenced by an officer’s reputation as a believer in stereotypes of people based on the color of their skin more than their character. Cooper argues it is a socio/political and acculturation feature of Cleveland’s police recruitment that undoubtedly exists in all human organizations.

Cleveland’s population is approximately 50% Black, but the police force is nearly 75% white.

Cooper notes the department fails to hire minorities based on changing demographics in Cleveland. Cleveland’s population is approximately 50% Black, but the police force is nearly 75% white. His Black father is a Sergeant in the police force who is ironically in the department of “Office of Professional Standards”. (Cooper notes his mother also sought employment in the police department but is rejected. In fairness, that could be based on something other than discrimination.)

Cooper’s point is that experience of living as a white person in America fails to understand or fairly address the socio/economic realities of being Black in America. He believes Black discrimination is embedded in the recruitment and advancement opportunities of the Cleveland police department. Cooper notes that early Black applicants to the Cleveland police had to sue to be hired or promoted in the Department. He suggests his mother’s rejection from being hired is because of her sex and color. He argues his father’s career advancement is inhibited by the management structure of the department. The story of Sergeant Victor Montague is more complicated because of his deadly force use in the death of a Black citizen.

Sergeant Victor Montague (fired by the Cleveland Division of Police in 2021 for ethical violations.)

Cooper tells the story of Victor Montague, a charismatic and outspoken Black leader in the department. He became the public face of “Black Shield” and spoke openly about racism in the department. He pushes for accountability and reform but comes up against entrenched power in the police department. Montague became a target of internal hostility and is closely supervised by his immediate superiors. His confrontational attitude and unwillingness to play politics offended the Department hierarchy. Montague set himself up for a second policy violation by putting himself in a position with a private company that offered to donate to Black Shield in return for security service for a bar owner’s business. This would have been a violation of department policy. It also appears as a potential avenue for bribery of Montague. Similar arrangements had been considered by white officers without noted consequences according to Cooper. This episode undermines leadership in “The Black Shield” organization.

A measure of race and ethnic inequality.

“The Black Shield” is a disjointed story that inexpertly reveals the truth of organizational discrimination in American society. Inequality based on sex and race is a fact of American life and most, if not all, nations of the world. Cooper’s story is not revelatory but a sad truth about human nature.

DUBLIN

Banville’s brief memoir successfully makes one wish to walk Dublin’s streets, countryside, and city to experience an environment that created some great writers.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Time Pieces (A Dublin Memoir)

Author:John Banville

Narration by: John Lee

John Banville (Author, aka Benjamin Black, Irish novelist, screenwriter, and literary stylist.)

John Banville’s memoir makes its listener/reader interested in visiting Dublin. The narrator, John Lee, has an Irish sounding brogue that offers a false authenticity to Banville’s memoir even though Lee is not Irish. Banville’s story is entertaining because it gives one some understanding of why so many famous writers came from Ireland. The list is long but the most well-known are James Joyce, W.B. Yeats, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, and Samuel Beckett. It seems from Banville’s memoir there is something about Ireland’s environment that creates great writers who become Nobel Prize winners, famous playwrights, and/or dramatists.

Location of Dublin in Ireland, accross from the west coast of the United Kingdom.

Banville implies there is something about Ireland that encourages self-reflection. He focuses on Dublin because it is where he is born and raised and has a son who still lives there. Banville, having left Dublin at 18, shows a love and longing for something that made him a writer of some fame. He reflects on his love for books to the point of stealing one from a library as a rascally but studious boy in Dublin; presumably because of the book’s appeal to his sense of self. His description of Dublin makes one wish to visit the places he describes. His peripatetic journey through his boyhood haunts undoubtedly helps him understand how and why he became a writer. Despite his recollections, one comes away from his memoir with few clues other than reading and being interested in books that makes Dublin a seedbed for great writers.

James Joyce wrote Ulysses and A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man.
Oscar Wilde wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Jonathan Swift wrote Gulliver’s Travels

In mid-book Banville details some of Ireland’s Kings and leaders. One nearly puts Banville’s book aside but the poignant story of his courtship of a young Irish girl draws one back into his view of Dublin.

Famous Irish Medieval Kings

Dancing at a Céilí: Your Ultimate Guide to Ireland’s Joyful Dance Tradition - Secret Ireland

One gathers from Banville’s memoir that it is the environment of Ireland, particularly Dublin, that made him who he became. One imagines a city teaming with people in a wet-weather, gray-skyed city that offers an education from books, teachers, and schools in Dublin. Banville encapsulates his view of an Irish life in “Time Pieces”. He paints a picture of Dublin that he implies made him who he became. He illustrates Ireland’s culture that formed the character of many famous literary men. Banville’s brief memoir successfully makes one wish to walk Dublin streets, its countryside, and city to experience an environment that created some great writers.

A WRITER’S JUDGEMENT

“There is Simply Too Much to Think About” is a time-consuming read with a depth of understanding about writing that gives one “…Too Much to Think About” because of its author’s humbling intelligence. The fundamental point Bellow makes is that art is as important as science for the advance of society.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

There Is Simply too Much to Think About (Collected Nonfiction) 

Author: Saul Bellow

Narration by: Malcolm Hillgartner

Saul Bellow (Author, Canadian-American novelist who has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the Pulitzer Prize.)

This is a daunting book by an accomplished novelist who explains what makes reading fiction and nonfiction worth one’s time and attention. The range of subjects Bellow covers is immense. He not only writes about literature but politics, philosophy, Jewish identity, American culture, history, and other subjects that overwhelm a reader/listener. Bellow suggests good nonfiction and fiction are about characters who write about life that makes them important enough to have meaning to readers and purpose for writers. A writer creates an understanding of characters in the context of a society in which they live. A good writer’s attention is given to the contradictions and complexity of living life. What Bellow means by nonfiction writers is those who witness life unfolding and relate that understanding from a perspective which may or may not resonate or at least be understood by a reader.

Though Bellow mentions few female authors, he shows strong opinions about famous male authors.

Bellow offers a tour of twentieth century writers he believes are examples of good nonfiction writers. He notes Ralph Ellison, Phillip Roth, and J.D. Salinger as examples of great nonfiction writers. At the same time, Bellow explains how deeply his life feeds into his writing. He reveals his own strengths and weaknesses. He acknowledges being drawn into trendy ideas of others that gloss over truth and mislead readers with contradictions. Like all human beings, Bellow can be misled by second-hand assertions about historic events and characters that lack verifiable truth. The result may be misrepresentation and sometimes cruel judgements about private lives and the history of humanity. Written misrepresentations reveal as much about the writer as the subject.

Ralph Ellison (Author of “Invisible Man”)

Bellow offers some warnings to readers of both good and bad writers. He suggests a reader should be careful about reading too much into writer’s characters or experience in a story. One thinks of Ellison’s “Invisible Man” and how it reshaped many readers understanding of race and identity. Ellison is not writing a protest novel. It is about social invisibility, Black identity, politics, and the meaning of life. Phillip Roth’s Colman Silk is accused of racism and forced to retire but he is not a racist. He is obviously falsely accused because he is secretly African American passing as white. Truth of a story is revealed in detail created by good writing.

Though not having personally read Bellow’s books, he notes that his writing is largely based on episodes from his own life.

Being born in a Montreal Jewish slum and raised as an immigrant in Chicago he experiences discrimination as a baby born in a Montreal slum and as an immigrant on Chicago streets. The working-class environment of Chicago streets gave Bellow a level of freedom and exposure to life as just another young boy finding his way in life. He could measure himself against more diverse life experiences in Chicago without losing his Jewish identity. As an immigrant, it added to his identity and broadened his understanding of life as a human being. He became streetwise in responding to the world.

The experience of life.

Bellow clearly illustrates a personal belief and understanding about life. He is an obvious master of American language. His intellect and curiosity are overwhelming. There is an emotional and moral seriousness that is sometimes funny and at others quite confrontational. He masterfully turns lived experience into art. There is a level of overconfidence in his judgement and personal contradictions crop up in his writing. On the one hand he distrusts ideology but writes a highly ideological view of writing. He defends the importance of art but criticizes culture. He lauds intellectual independence while insisting on his own beliefs. He is a bit combative toward academics, critics, and seems somewhat dismissive or impatient with those who struggle with his opinions. The title of Bellow’s book says it all–“There is Simply Too Much to Think About”.

Bellow believes the arts are the essential ingredient of what Martin Luther King’s quote depends upon.

Bellow is very judgmental about the writers he reviews in his “…Much to Think About” book. His greatest praise goes to Ralph Ellison, Phillip Roth, James Joyce, and Franz Kafka. His sharpest criticism is of Updike, Hemmingway, T.S. Eliot, Salinger, and James Baldwin. Updike is called too polished, Hemingway too emotionally shallow, Eliot too culturally conservative, Salinger too mystical, and Baldwin too damaged by ethnic prejudice. Despite his criticism, Bellow finds their works have power and meaning implying they are worth reading. Most who recognize or have read some or all of these authors will likely find them worth the time and effort to read them and come to their own conclusions.

“There is Simply Too Much to Think About” is a time-consuming read with a depth of understanding about writing that gives one “…Too Much to Think About” because of its author’s humbling intelligence. The fundamental point Bellow makes is that art is as important as science for the advance of society.

Chinese and American Youth

To this book reviewer, the flaw in American democracy is the rising gap between rich and poor. Dychtwald implies the flaw in China is its reliance on a singular leader’s actions to improve the daily lives of its citizens.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Young China (How the Restless Generation Will Change Their Country and the World) 

Author: Zak Dychtwald

Narration by: Zak Dychtwald

Zak Dychtwald (Author, public speaker, fluent Mandarin speaker, world traveler, graduate of Columbia University who moved to China and spent 4 years interviewing local Chinese.)

“Young China” is a fascinating comparison of a world traveler’s perception of the difference between young Americans and Chinese youths. A reservation one has in listening to Dychtwald’s explanation of Chinese youth is whether a 4-year immersion in a foreign culture constitutes a society’s truth or just a topical view of an intelligent observer who gravitates to students of similar ambition.

America’s Achilles heel.

Not knowing the author’s life experience, one assumes he has not lived the life of most American college students of his generation. As a graduate of Columbia, his decision to learn Mandarin Chinese, and choice to travel to China for a four year stay suggests he is not a typical American youth. Further, as the meaning of the saying “Birds of a feather flock together”, one presumes his choice of interviewees is not likely to be typical Chinese college students but those who excel in intelligence and academic pursuit.

Contrast of lives in China.

The main Chinese youths whom the author interviews and becomes acquainted with are Ben, Vivian, Chen, Liu, and Mei. Ben–who is a striver who has a rural background. Vivian is a young professional woman who speaks English and comes from the middle class. Chen is a university student who embraces nationalist beliefs of young Chinese. Liu is a young teenager who experiences the meritocratic pressure of academic achievement in China. And finally, Mei is a young Chinese college student dealing with job aspirations, dating, marriage pressure, and career ambitions.

Education is the great strength of China.

In some sense, these characters have American student similarities. One can find similar Americans in each of the broad categories of these five Chinese students. However, Dychtwald sees Chinese students as “dreamers and strivers” while his experience is that American students are skeptical about the value of education and their future. Dychtwald finds Chinese college students take their performance on college exams more seriously than American college students. High academic achievement is a critical goal to a Chinese student while to an American graduating with a degree is the primary goal and finding a career is more important than achieving high scores on college exams. Chinese youths see themselves as a part of a national achievement for China while Americans see themselves as cogs in a capitalist machine that may or may not turn into successful careers.

College is a pressure cooker for Chinese students while it’s more of a cultural experience and stage of life for most American students.

Finally, Dychtwald notes Chinese students are globally curious, Western influenced, while being confident in the superiority of their own country. In contrast, American students care less about other countries, know few languages beyond English, and see their country as just one of many cultures in the world. Dychwald is an outlier in that he does not view China as a threat to American hegemony, but a country focusing on improving the lives of their citizens.

The risks of singular leadership.

Admittedly, this review is a narrow interpretation of Dychtwald’s fascinating book. Only an extraordinary intellect would move to China after graduating from college and learn fluent Mandarin during a 4 year stay in China. It makes we who are old wish we had the privilege of Dychtwald’s intelligence to live life over again.

To this book reviewer, the flaw in American democracy is the rising gap between rich and poor. Dychtwald implies the flaw in China is its reliance on a singular leader’s actions to improve the daily lives of its citizens. America has the advantage of 4-year democratic change in leadership while China is dependent on an authoritarian’s health and judgement as a singular leader.

CHOICE

The surprising message in “The Glass Castle” is homelessness may be a choice. One wonders if that is the fault of American society or the nature of human beings.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Glass Castle (A Memoir) 

Author: Jeannette Walls

Narration by: Jeannette Walls

Jeanette Walls (Author, American journalist, former gossip columnist for MSNBC.)

“The Glass Castle” is Jeanette Walls remembrance of her nomadic family and the way she is raised in America. With 3 siblings, an alcoholic father who knows something about electrical and mechanical engineering, a mother qualified as a schoolteacher who is an aspiring artist, Jeanette Wall’s parents choose to roam America.

The Walls Family.

“The Glass Castle” is a memoir of Jeanette Walls upbringing in America. Her story is enlightening if not entirely believable. Walls writes about her chaotic peripatetic life in America, mentions two personal marriages, and a life she lives with a father who loves her and a mother who holds the family together. Jeanette Walls is the second child of the family. She has an older sister, Lori, a younger brother named Brian, and a younger sister named Maureen. She and her brother are characterized with above average intelligence. In the beginning of her story, she notes living on Park Avenue and seeing her homeless mother rummaging through a dumpster in New York city. She confronts her mother, Rose Mary, who walks away saying Americans are wasteful and throw away perfectly useful, sometimes beautiful, things. This shocking introduction is about Jeanette Walls’ and her family’s life in America.

Arizona and West Virginia.

Listener/readers are introduced to Wall’s grandparents who came from two different economic backgrounds with Jeanettes mother’s family being middle class living in Arizona and her father’s parents being poor and living in West Virginia. Both grandparent families are matriarchal with mothers being rulers of the roost. The grandmother in Arizona dies and leaves two houses and Arizona land with some money to Jenette’s mother that offers, for a short time, some economic stability to the family’s life in America. However, Jennett’s family decides to move on to pursue their peripatetic life. They visit her father’s parents in West Virginia. Her dad’s father is an alcoholic with a wife that sternly rules the house. That sternness causes Jeanette Walls and her family to leave for New York City.

“The Glass Castle” is a story about how children are raised in America.

There is no particular standard for those who grow up in America or, for that matter, anywhere in the world. Living life anywhere can be romantically identified as perfect but that is a universal fiction. There is no safety net whether in America or anywhere in the world. There are “haves’ and “have nots” in every society. Children growing to adulthood, whether wealthy or poor, are faced with the trials of life that begin with their birth, extend through family relationships and the exigencies of making their way in the culture in which they live. Children live and are raised in a “…Glass Castle” that hides little from the world and can be shattered by the random circumstances of life. “The Glass Castle” shows experiences of childhood are universal and are either constructive or destructive in ways that mold a child’s character.

Children are influenced by their parents in both good and bad ways.

Alcoholism in a parent may lead to a child’s following or rejecting its influence in their life. Seeing the consequence of a parent’s experience can turn one toward their parents or steer one’s life in an opposite direction. America purports to be a land of opportunity but like every culture in the world there is inequality, instability, risk, and reward that change a child’s direction in life.

The surprising message in “The Glass Castle” is homelessness may be a choice. One wonders if that is the fault of American society or the nature of human beings.

JUST BEING

Until equality of opportunity is somehow politically assured, human nature will always victimize those who are different.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Fire Inside (The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde)

Author: Rima Vesely-Flad Ph.D.

Narration by: Heni Zoutomou

Rima Vesely-Flad (Author, Buddhist and Black History scholar with a Ph.D. in Social Ethics.)

The premise of Vesely-Flad’s book is somewhat misleading because its cover highlights James Baldwin and Audre Lorde while much of the text is a biography of Rima Vesely-Flad. “The Fire Inside” does address beliefs of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde but it is the dimension of black life in America that is the book’s subject. A large part of the story is the author’s life as a woman born to a white mother and black father. Vesely-Flad explains her grandparents were offended by their granddaughter’s birth because of her having a Black father.

The beliefs and fame of James Baldwin are reported in many books written about him and by him. Audre Lorde and Vesely-Flad, on the other hand, are not well known to the general public. Lorde’ and Vesely-Flad’ stories are gender versions of Baldwin’s story.

Audre Lorde (American writer, professor, philosopher, feminist, poet, and civil rights activist.)

Ms. Lorde was born in 1934 to Caribbean immigrant parents from Grenada. She became a poet who wrote about racism, structural oppression, sexism, and sexual orientation. A book of her poems was first published in 1968, and she became a National Book Award winner in 1988. She was an active participant in the women’s movement, civil rights, and LGBTQ liberation. A famous line which became a rallying cry Lorde created is “Your silence will not protect you”. Her beliefs are about the majority of people in America and their power. She argues–the American white majority should confront the truth of who they are, and how society represses those who are non-white. This is the theme that fits the reputations of Baldwin and Vesely-Flad in “The Fire Inside”.

“Go Tell It on the Mountain” is an autobiographical view of life and growth to manhood as a Black child raised in Harlem. It took ten years to write but became Baldwin’s most famous book. It released Baldwin from the ghost of his stepfather’s cruelty and set the stage for his exploration of race, religion, sexuality, and personal identity.

As a bibliophile, one is drawn to “The Fire Inside” because of the picture of Baldwin on its cover. Many who have read Baldwin’s work are drawn to this book because of his fame and writing about American racism. The stories of the author’ and Lorde’s lives reinforce much of what one has read in Baldwin’s books.

The author of “The Fire Inside” follows and considers herself a Buddhist. Neither Baldwin nor Lorde were Buddhists, but Vesely-Flad argues they followed many Buddhist beliefs by confronting and clarifying suffering in America. They exposed the illusions of ego, fear, and domination which are goals of Buddhism. Like Buddhists, the author argues Baldwin and Lorde insisted on liberation of the personal, political, and spiritual beliefs of the individual.

What an author like Margo Jefferson explains in “Negroland” is American society makes her life different because of her color.

Vesely-Flad explains both Baldwin and Lorde are gay. Black Americans who believe in their right to be as they are should not be challenged by the political, spiritual, and religious beliefs of society. The point they make is that one’s inner life is their own. As long as one is not using anger, discrimination, or power to oppress others, they have an equal right to their personal life, liberty, and opportunity.

How will input from human beings escape the imperfect nature of humankind?

Vesely-Flad’s idealization of life and liberty exists nowhere in the world because of human nature. One is drawn to religions like Christianity, Protestantism, Islam, and some would argue Buddhism, but in practice we all remain trapped by human nature and become discriminatory. Vesely-Flad’s story of her life and experience have the same social ugliness that is known of Baldwin’s and Lorde’s lives. Until equality of opportunity is somehow politically assured, human nature will always victimize those who are different.

North Korea

As Lord Acton said, “Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely”. North Korea is a case that proves the point.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

In Order to Live (A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom)

Author: Yeonmi Park

Narration by: Eji Kim

Yeonmi Park (Author, North Korean defector)

Yeonmi Park has written an interesting story about North Korea’s general conditions before she and her mother defected. In 2007, at the age of 13, Yeonmi and her mother escaped North Korea. They crossed the border from Hyesan, North Korea into China. They ventured into Mongolia and escaped to South Korea in 2009.

North Korea is a dark place in many ways.

The picture Yeonmi paints of North Korean life is one of famine, and chronic hunger that is exacerbated by a state-controlled food assistance policy. She reveals a North Korean environment that is hypervigilant about ideological control of its citizens with a system of informants about any criticism of North Korean rule or government belief. She notes human trafficking exists for North Korean women who cross the Yalu River to China. She suggests her mother is a victim of that abhorrent trade in order to escape North Korea. This illicit form of trade is corroborated by other North Korean women who crossed the border to China.

Border between China and N. Korea.

To survive in North Korea, Yeonmi’s family is involved in black-marketing between North Korea and China. Her father participates in a network of bribed officials in the black market to improve their family’s living conditions while in North Korea. Yeonmi explains her father becomes intimately involved with another woman in his North Korean activities which undoubtedly encourages her mother to defect. Another incentive for her mother’s decision is Yeonmi’s older sister who had crossed the border into China at age 16 and lost communication with her family. Presumably, the older daughter wished also to find a better life.

Naturally, Western’ listener/readers want to believe everything Yeonmi writes. In the context of what others have written about North Korean life, one is inclined to believe much of what she recalls in her book. Many North Korean citizens want a better life while women are coveted on the border because of the sex trade. Yeonmi notes her mother is sexually assaulted by a trafficker during their escape into China. She infers the assault is a combination of coercion and violence, not a transactional choice.

This illicit trade is a reminder of the so-called “comfort women” of WWII but with Japan as the culprit.

Women’s exploitation is a worldwide issue. Yeonmi paints a picture of North Korea’s and China’s border trade, and risks that are entirely believable in the context of other critics who have written about the illicit trade between North Korea and China. Just like the illegal drug trade between Columbia, Venezuela, Mexico and the United States, North Korea and China run an illegal trade in human beings. At the heart of this corruption is the money and power it gives those who choose to support or ignore it. Sex, like drugs, victimizes the innocent and lures corrupt citizens in all cultures.

1990s famine in North Korea.

Yeonmi writes about the chronic hunger, famine, and food scarcity in North Korea’s 1990s that is corroborated by UN reports and Non-Government Organizations research and other defector testimonies. The same UN’ and NGO’ reports refer to North Korea’s repression, use of surveillance, and ideological indoctrination. North Koreans that have escaped reinforce reports of indoctrination, the fear of being informed upon and the propaganda about the “Dear Leader” that rules their forsaken country. Many defectors have reported the harsh punishments, forced labor, and border violence (shootings) they have experienced or seen in North Korea.

A picture of Yeonmi Park’s family in North Korea before the mother’s and youngest daughter’s decision to defect.

Yeonmi Park’s story may not be entirely true or objective but enough of her story is corroborated by other organizations and writers that give credence to her story. The inhumanity that has been created by the leader of North Korea turns one’s stomach. As Lord Acton said, “Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely”. North Korea is a case that proves the point.

SURVEILLANCE’S EDGES

The story of Israel Keyes’ crimes, his eventual capture, and the trial of a United Health CEO killer make one realize how today’s surveillance technology is important, even in a relatively free society.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

American Predator (The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century)

Author: Maureen Callahan

Narration by: Amy Landon

Maureen Callahan (Author, journalist, columnist with a BA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City.)

This is a chilling history of a serial killer named Israel Keyes who lived in Alaska with his girlfriend and daughter. Callahan gathered facts from FBI files, interviews with investigators, court records and conversations with people who knew Keyes. Callahan begins with the story of an 18-year-old girl working at a coffee drive up as its sole occupant and worker. Ms. Samantha Koenig is stabbed to death the morning after she is abducted but her body is preserved by Keyes for days after her death. The cold of Alaska keeps the body from decomposing for an estimated two weeks in which it is kept in one of Keyes’ two sheds. Keyes then sinks her remains under the ice of an Alaskan lake.

Samatha Konig’s gruesome death leads to the capture of Israel Keyes.

When Keyes is captured, Callahan notes there were three primary interrogators. Jolene Goeden (an FBI investigator in the Anchorage, Alaska Division), Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Russo, and FBI Agent Jeff Bell. Their interrogations reveal Keyes travels, his “kill kits”, victims of his demented mind, his final confessions, and the details of his reported murders. The actual number of his murders will never be known because of the many missing and unsolved disappearances in the United States. Surveillance of his mode of transportation led to his arrest in Texas and an eventual confession to three murders. It is estimated that there were at least eleven murders but in the opinion of the author, it could be many more.

Keyes created “kill kits”, hidden packages with tools, money, and weapons that could be unburied in his many travels across the United States. His travels around America from Alaska, south, east, and west seems to have given him license to kill.

The three murders that were directly tied to Keyes were Samantha Koenig (age 18) and a married couple named Currie (Bill age 49 and Lorraine age 55). Keynes admits raping all three. The concrete evidence of these three murders, independent of what Keyes admitted to the FBI, were his possession of Samatha’s cell phone, debit card, pictures he had taken of her, details about the murder of the Curries, and DNA evidence found on Koenig’s body when recovered from a nearby lake. In the case of the Curries which he also admitted killing, the facts of the murder were explained with a detail of one who could only have been the murderer, and finally corroboration of his rental car mileage which showed he could have been there at the time of the murders. Keyes refused to offer details of other murders of at least 11 people that could not be documented well enough for American law to prove guilt beyond a doubt.

Israel Keyes (1978-2012, Keyes is the son of a family of 10 children raised in the states of California and Washington. He is found to be a serial killer, bank robber, burglar, arsonist, and kidnapper who is believed to have killed 11 people between 2001 and 2012.)

Keyes is a fanatically controlling person, militarily trained, athletic, and intelligent. Keyes lost his control of life when he is put in prison. That loss of control appears to lead him to commit suicide with a razor blade and garrote to ensure death by his own hand, a last act of his need for control. Callahan notes Keyes lived with two women during his life with a daughter born from his first relationship. Naturally, their lives are hidden from the public based on Keyes’ horrible and despicable crimes.

Many Americans discount the value of living in a country where surveillance technology is used to protect citizens and fairly adjudicate the guilty for crimes against society.

The story of Israel Keyes’ crimes, his eventual capture, and the trial of a United Health CEO killer make one realize how today’s surveillance technology is important, even in a relatively free society. Admittedly, surveillance can be taken to an extreme when used to control human behavior as shown in China, Russia, and North Korea. Israel Keyes would still be murdering and raping men and women without American surveillance that eventually leads to his arrest and conviction.

America’s system of justice is not perfect. It can be abused in ways that today’s President is showing. All human beings are flawed. Like Presidents of the United States, surveillance can be a curse or a blessing. Too much power, like too much surveillance, is a danger to society.

SCHIZOPHRENIA REDUX

The boon and bane of a brilliant mind is that it can correlate facts with causes to reveal the mysteries of the universe but also the demons of false correlation and belief.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Best Minds (A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions)

Author: Jonathan Rosen

Narration by: Jonathan Rosen

Jonathan Rosen (Author, Yale graduate, writes for The Jewish Daily Forward, and the Free Press.)

As a person who has lived through the same generation as Jonathan Rosen, his story is interesting partly because it tells what it is like to be born a Jew in America. In many ways, one finds life as a Jew is no different than it is for any American. Most Americans are born into a family that cares for them and influences who they become as adults. Children are born with innate abilities that are either cultivated or ignored by their parents. Some parents are too busy with their own lives to offer care a child may benefit from with more attention. It appears Jonathan Rosen is born into a family that cultivates his abilities despite their busy lives. One wonders if that is a matter of ethnic tradition or inherent nature. One suspects it is a little of both.

In “The Best Minds”, an important part of being raised a Jew is education that encourages and reinforces Jewish identity through rituals like the bar mitzva.

The bar mitzva and bat mitzva (for girls) is a coming-of-age ceremony at age 13 (sometimes 12 for girls) where a Jewish child memorizes and recites passages from the Torah. On the one hand it reinforces one’s identity with a particular ethnicity. On the other, it is one of many exercises of memory that reinforces one’s ability to succeed academically. Much of one’s success as an accomplished adult is recall of information whether a doctor, lawyer, or merchant chief. From a young age, memorization is an important skill for Jewish children. One wonders how much tradition has to do with the brilliance of Einstein, Oppenheimer, Salk and so many other Jews of the world. This is not to suggest being raised in a Jewish family is not as traumatic and unpredictable as any child born but to recognize ethnic customs make a difference in children’s lives. The great contributions to science and art by Jews makes one wish they might live life over again with more positively ritualized cultivation.

Michael Laudor (Yale graduate, subject of “The Best Minds)

However, there is much more to Rosen’s story. His life is intertwined with the life of Michael Laudor, a close childhood friend who is raised in a similar environment and recognized as a prodigy. However, Lauder succumbs to schizophrenia. This is not to suggest Jews or any ethnicity is prone to psychological imbalance. Psychiatric imbalance is not defined by ethnicity but exists as a potential for every human being. One doubts there is any defense against psychological abnormality whether Jew, gentile, or other.

Laudor and Rosen as childhood friends.

Laudor and Rosen were close friends. Rosen recognizes his friend has a superior mind, i.e., one of “The Best Minds” of Rosen’s high school’ years. Rosen struggles to understand what happened to his childhood friend. Both Rosen and Laudor are accepted at Yale. Laudor chooses law as his course of study. Rosen goes on to California to get a PhD in literature. Their dual biographies make Rosen’s story impactful. Rosen explains how intelligence, ambition, and success can be destroyed by mental illness.

Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

Laudor is a wunderkind who performs at a level far beyond his age group. He graduates from Yale and decides wealth is a goal to be achieved. He is hired by an investment consulting firm which offers him an opportunity to become super-rich. Rosen infers Laudor succeeds. From the outside, Laudor appears to be highly successful, but he becomes dissatisfied with his life and quits the firm that hired him. Rosen stays in touch with Laudor and writes “The Best Minds” to reveal what he thinks he knows about what happened to his childhood friend. The beginning of Laudor’s imbalance appears to Rosen when Laudor explains he is being followed, monitored and targeted by unknown malefactors. Before that conversation, the erratic behavior of Rosen’s friend seemed like a matter of burnout from his high-flying experience as an investment consultant. The intensity of Laudor’s paranoia makes Rosen believe something more serious is at the root of his friend’s behavior.

Rosen stays in touch with Laudor–talking to him about what is going on in his life. He tries to get Laudor to see the falseness of his delusions without triggering defensiveness. Rosen avoids contradicting Laudor by trying to be supportive and encouraging him to seek help. On the one hand one wonders what more could Rosen do. How else could he intervene in Laudor’s spiral into what is later diagnosed as schizophrenia? A reader/listener wonders what they would or could have done.

Michael Laudor murders his fiancée, Carrie Costello, in 1998. She is pregnant at the time of her death.

Laudor had grown to believe his girlfriend had become a part of a conspiracy to harm him and that he needed to defend himself despite her trying to care for him. His brilliant mind manufactured a false reality. His delusion leads to the fatal stabbing of Ms. Costello. After the homicide, Laudor calls 911. He is arrested and transferred to a psychiatric facility and later found guilty by reason of insanity. He died in 2022 at the age of 56 in a New York State psychiatric hospital, never recovering from severe schizophrenia.

“The Best Minds” is Rosen’s effort to understand how genius and madness can be intertwined. The boon and bane of a brilliant mind is that it can correlate facts with causes to reveal the mysteries of the universe but also the demons of false correlation and belief. Correlation is not causation without objective and repeatable experimental proof.

The question one asks oneself after finishing Rosen’s book is what one can do differently to keep someone from losing their way in life whether he/she is a genius or not?

LIFE’S MEANING

The story of McCandless’s life is that meaning in life comes from people and nature, not one or the other but both.


Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Into the Wild

Author: Jon Krakauer

Narration by: Philip Franklin

John Krakauer (Author, mountaineer, raised in Corvallis, Oregon.)

The main character in “Into the Wild”, tuned in and dropped out. His “tune in” is not to drugs but a wish to understand the meaning of life. Christopher Johnson McCandless chose, after graduating from Atlanta, Georgia’s Emory University, to live off the grid of society, i.e. particularly capitalist society. His degree is a BA in history and anthropology. McCandless chooses to drive around the country, working at dead-end jobs to sustain himself until he finds a place to live in a natural habitat, without the aid of society which he believes keeps him from understanding the meaning of life. He began a “walk about” from Georgia with a plan to explore survival in the frigid wilds of Alaska. McCandless kept a journal of his search for life’s meaning. His journal became the guiding source for Jon Krakauer’s book about McCandless’s brief life.

Christopher Johnson McCandless (1967-1992, died at the age of 24.)

The McCandless family picture with Christopher either before or after enrollment at Emory University.

McCandless came from a solidly middleclass family but rejected capitalism defined by the desire for money, power, and/or prestige. He obviously loved the outdoors and wished to explore the possibility of living off the land with whatever nature had to offer. McCandless rebels against capitalist beliefs when graduating from college. He begins a search for the meaning of life beyond the principles of a capitalist society. He sought understanding by experiencing the attractions and dangers of the American wilderness. McCandless wishes to be free of materialism, his familial relationships, and the conventions of a middleclass capitalist life.

(One wonders if McCandless’s story is part of today’s rising homelessness with people living in tents, sleeping in business doorways and on sidewalks of American cities? Are Americans becoming disillusioned with capitalism because the gap between rich and poor is rising and pushing the middleclass into poverty? Some argue the cost of living is climbing faster than the wages of employment.)

McCandless graduation form Emory University in Atlanta Georgia.

With a BA in history and anthropology, McCandless graduates from Emory in 1990 and leaves Atlanta, heading west. Rather than look for a job or extending his education, he donates his savings to charity, cuts off communication with his family, and journeys to the west in a 1982, B210, Datsun. He heads southwest, traveling to Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico. He spends some time in Arizona with odd jobs and becomes stranded when his Datsun is disabled by a flood. He hitchhikes to California via Las Vegas, goes through South Dakota with his determined destination being Alaska in 1992. Nearly two years have passed since graduating from Emory.

Map showing McCandless’s two years of travel from the East to the West, mid-West, and on to Alaska.

McCandless kept a journal of his travels. The author, John Krakauer, interviews some of the people McCandless meets and/or works for that are noted in his journey. All say he was a nice person and hard worker who dependably showed up for work. However, one employer noted he had to be told to take a shower and wear socks when he came to work at their fast-food restaurant. McCandless was obviously homeless and had no shower facilities in which to bathe. He reluctantly complied as best he could but soon left to find his way to Alaska.

Sample of McCandless’s journal when he called himself Alex Supertramp.

McCandless arrives in southern California. He meets an older (80 something) American named Ronald Franz, a leatherworker, who tries to convince McCandless to give up his wandering life. They become friends but McCandless leaves Franz without saying goodbye as he heads north. The importance of their relationship is shown in a letter sent to Franz by McCandless that explains his inner conflicts. McCandless explains his need for independence and the freedom it gives him to personally connect with himself. By abandoning materialism, wealth, and social expectations, McCandless believes it makes him free. The tension created by McCandless’s belief in social isolation versus human relationship is expressed in his letter to Franz. Being alone is no answer to the conflict one feels toward their family or those who are part of society. Part of one’s identity, belief in who they are, and belief in oneself is reinforced by other people, not in wilderness isolation. This is a lesson of life that McCandless refuses to see or understand. The well-known poet, John Donne, recognizes “No man is an island”. All humans are interconnected which is a truth McCandless refuses to see.

McCandless dies in a Fairbanks city Transit bus he used as a shelter in Alaska. John Krakauer speculates on the cause of death being inadvertent poisoning from eating potato seeds because of McCandless’s hunger, emaciation, and lack of nourishment. If there is meaning in life, McCandless search and isolation is in vain. The story of McCandless’s life is that meaning in life comes from people and nature, not one or the other but both.