Technical Difficulties

The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts: Murder and Memory in an American City by Laura Tillman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is an excellent, sad, hopeful book about Brownsville, Texas, and a terrible murder that took place there in 2003. John Allen Rubio and his common-law wife Maria Angela Camacho murdered---decapitated---their three children, all under the age of 4. Rubio was sentenced to death. Tillman's inquiry is about the murder; about the history of the building it took place in; about the man who did it (and to a lesser extent about the woman---Rubio agreed to talk to Tillman and Camacho did not); in one amazing chapter about the death penalty; about the community and how they responded. Tillman writes beautifully and thoughtfully and empathetically about tragedy, and although she can't answer the question of why Rubio did it---a number of answers are put forward, including grinding poverty, schizophrenia, drugs, and/or demonic possession---she does record the community's ultimate, beautiful response: to make the land behind the building into the Tres Angeles Community Garden: 3 angels for Julissa, John Stephan, and Mary Jane.



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