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Facing the Wind

Name: Facing the Wind
Price: 4.99 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Julie Salamon
ISBN: 9780375507014

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Published on Jun 12, 2001 | 320 Pages

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Published on Jun 12, 2001 | 320 Pages

Buy from Other Retailers:

Robert and Mary Rowe’s second child, Christopher, was born with severe neurological and visual impairments. For many years, the Rowes’ courageous response to adversity set an example for a group of Brooklyn mothers who met to discuss the challenges of raising children with birth defects. Then Bob Rowe’s pressures — professional and personal — took their toll, and he fell into depression and, ultimately delusion. And one day he took a baseball bat and killed his three children and his wife. In Facing the Wind, Julie Salamon not only tells the Rowes’ tragic story but also explores the lives of others drawn into it: the mothers, a social worker with problems of her own, an ocularist — that is, a man who makes prosthetic eyes — a young woman who enters the novitiate out of shame over her childhood sexual activities, and a judge of unusual wisdom. Facing the Wind is a work of redemptive compassion and understanding. It addresses the questions of how human beings cope with the burdens that chance inflicts upon them and what constitutes moral and legal guilt and innocence.

"Readers should experience the suspense for themselves . . . Facing the Wind had me tossing at night and racing to finish it by day. It is a rare combination of superb reporting and narrative skill . . . It is not a book that can be read and forgotten."
— James B. Stewart, New York Times Book Review

"Happily for the reader, Ms. Salamon is a fine reporter . . . In tackling the issue of personal heroism, Facing the Wind brings home the point that while certain of life’s difficulties can be fought and conquered, others must simply be borne with digity. From what depths do humans draw the strength to do that? What is their reward?"
— The New York Times

"A suspenseful, well-researched account of the life of a Brooklyn lawyer Robert Rowe, who murdered his wife and three children and escaped prison with the insanity please in 1978 . . . A perturbing read that prods us to ponder guilt and innocence from new perspectives."
— Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"This true-crime story reaches beyond the relatively narrow focus of the genre to ask painful and provocative questions about guilt and forgiveness."
— Publishers Weekly, starred review

"…A sensitive and fascinating account…Her book is important not only for its lessons on the ravages of mental illness but for its ability to overturn our assumptions about evil, innocence, guilt and compassion.
—- Carmela Ciuraru, The Wall Street Journal

"This book will be a fascinating read. Well written and heavily researched, it clearly demonstrates Salamon’s prowess and her journalistic roots. Readers will not easily forget this tale."
—- Library Journal

Author

Julie Salamon

Julie Salamon is the author of several award-winning books for adults, including Wendy and the Lost Boys, as well as her debut novel for children, Cat in the City. Her writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and more. She lives in Manhattan with her family.

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Facing the Wind

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By Julie Salamon

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