Customer Reviews

In the Best of Families: The Anatomy of a True Tragedy

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Both my brothers have psychotic illnesses. It took years for both to be diagnosed. There were frequent bouts with alcoholism, drugs, arrests and nasty behavior. I hate to say it, but I moved thousands of miles away while my parents attempted to come to their aid continuously. In a review at this site the writer wonders how the father (Roy) could let it happen when he had an important job. You'd be surprised how numb you can get to aberrant behavior.

Two years ago, via genealogical research, I discovered a maternal great aunt and great uncle institutionalized with paranoid schizophrenia. My mother never knew. In the early 1900's the treatment included religious instruction. Ha!

If you're interested in the real thing, this is the book for you.

This is not one of the best true crime books I've read but I found it to be a very informative study of schizophrenia and how NOT to treat it. The story focuses on how a wealthy suburban couple try to cope with their schizophrenic sons, who are put through various dubious treatment methods including bizarre diets, regression hypnotherapy,and confrontational counselling by men who are later exposed as quacks. The mother is a very smothering although well-meaning lady who only seems to exacerbate both of her sons illness by scheduling every minute of their lives even as adults, and attempting to control every morsel of food they eat, believing that the right combination of foods and herbs will cure thier illnesses. After Jeff committs suicide while in an institution, the parents are reluctant to committ their other son Michael so they keep him living at home. Things become truly bizarre near the end of the book when Michael gets the obsessive idea in his head that his mother should have sex with him. For several days the parents tolerate him walking around the house naked, verbally abusing his mother and making lewd sexual suggestions to her. The father does nothing and seems very distracted by his high profile job. I'm sorry, but at this point I think any one with common sense would leave or throw this obviously dangerous man out of their house. Sadly they let things continue until Michael flips out and murders his mother, then has sex with her while dead.

I'm no expert on schizophrenia, but I do know that keeping a patient on the right medication is extremely important and without that the illness only gets worse. This murder was a tragedy that could have been prevented. There is also much in the book about Ronald Reagan's "tough love" policies for the mentally ill which included closing state-run mental institutions all over America. This apparently led to thousands of mentally ill people being turned loose on the streets and becoming homeless.

While the underlying crime is certainly compelling: twenty-year-old son kills mother and then rapes her corpse, this book is way too long, way too comprehensive, and really tails off at the end. It got to the point that I just didn't care. I would also note that in this case, there was no doubt as to the guilt of the defendant, so there was no need to recount any of the investigation, yet the book ran on and on. I myself just skimmed the last seventy-five or so pages as all relevant issues had been either resolved by then or ignored. If this were one hundred pages shorter, it would have been much better. (And if you're looking for a GREAT true crime book, check out "Little Girl Lost," by Joan Merriam.)

My husband has been diagnosed with a type of schizoprenia, known as shizo-affective disored. I found this book to be very true to how it feels to live with somone with such a mental illness. The "episodes" that occured in the book have been simialur to the ones that have occured with my husband. The book was a very knowladgable book and gave me some insight as far as how schizoprnia can be treated inappopratally, and how if you wait too long it will be too late. For my husband has been in and out of the local state mental insitae more than once. I just belive that it is finding the right medication to go along witht the illnees, that makes a differance. I just really can't say enough about the book and how it made me feel as though I wasn't the only one alone.

I had never heard of this story before reading the book. A well-to-do, "perfect" family is shattered when one son dies by overdose and the surviving son rapes and murders (or murders, then rapes) his own mother! How does the father cope with such devastation, having lost his wife and both sons (the murderer is still alive but institutionalized)? My 11-yr-old son died four years ago from a self-inflicted gunshot, and I am still trying to figure out how to live my life. I gave this book an inflated four stars because while it was quite good, it did drag at times and I even left it to read another book (twice) and then went back to it. So it took me a long time to finish. Right now I am reading "And The Sea Will Tell" which is ten times more riveting -- can't put that one down. But I feel that "In the Best of Families" deserves four stars because of the sheer tragedy of this poor family, and I would read another book by this auther.

The family of Ronald Reagan's personal attorney, Roy Miller, reaps the negative benefits of Reagan's policies toward the mentally ill during his term as governor of California. When Gov. Reagan began dumping the mentally ill on the streets and closing mental hospitals statewide there was little sympathy shown for the families of those most affected by his decisions. It is ironic that his personal attorney, a brilliant and compasionate man, would find his family destroyed as a result of his client's political policy. Dennis McDougal removes the rock covering the slimy underground of California's physchiatric empire and lets the sun shine in. The author maintains sympathetic control over his writing and provides the historical background necessary for the reader to understand and appreciate this long hidden tragedy. A must read.

I found the original topic of this book to be interesting, if a bit gruesome. However, one thing McDougal does in this book is to give too much irrelevant information. We don't really need to know what the grandfather of the primary subject of the book looked like, nor do we need to know about interactions between William French Smith and Ronald Reagan, since they have little to do with the book. In my opinion, much of this was filler material to make what should have been about 150 pages into 320. To be fair to the author, publishers often insist on excessive copy these days, as they find it easier to sell "thick" books than "thin" ones. Using that paradigm, though, most of John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway would never have been published. Also, McDougal seems to feel it neccessary to periodically interject his negative opinions of Reagan's policies into the book, and while I guess he has the right, as the book is not a newspaper, it at times becomes distracting.

It feels as if the author knew the man intimately, but apparently he never met him personally. That's what I call First Class investigative writing.

The synopsis of this case makes it sound extremely interesting and unique. Two rich young sons both suffering from major mental illnesses? Especially in one tight nit, religious and wealthy family. It seems most people that interacted with them over the years knew something was askew but there was nothing anyone else could really do. The author tends to really go out of his way to embarrass the mother and victim in this tragedy. Does an overbearing nutrition loving mother drive her boys to insanity in all cases or just this one. This book really had a "blame the victim" mentality going on. Very sad story but I did not feel it was written to shun Reaganomics or make too many statements about social services. It was just a slow and repetitive book.

I attempted to read this book approximately 2 years ago, finally giving up in frustration. The subject of the book would suggest it is an interesting story and, perhaps in the hands of a better author, it might have been. A prominent family haunted by mental illness. Two sons diagnosed as schizophrenic. An overbearing, controlling, and obsessive mother. Denial that eventually culminates in tragedy. Sounds promising, does it not?

Unfortunately, the book suffers from the inclusion of much unnecessary information and repetition. After reading 150 pages and doomed to boredom, I finally skipped to the end simply to find out what happened to the young son who was both victim and offender. I doubt it is coincidence that when Michael finally succumbed to his psychotic impulses, that it was his mother, Marguerite, whom he murdered. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Marguerite continued to believe that if her children maintained a diet free from refined sugar and processed foods, she could reverse the ravages of schizophrenia. Even the death of her older son to suicide in a psychiatric facility was not enough to prompt a different course of action. Instead of seeking reputable mental health assistance for her younger son, she pursued a number of "holistic" remedies, spending thousands of dollars on methods, doctors, and therapists that amounted to nothing short of quackery. In what can only be described as an act of extreme rage, Michael clubbed his mother to death, dragged her body to the master bedroom, and raped the corpse, even urinating inside his mother during the sexual assault. Suffocated under the weight of an overcontrolling and demanding mother, and delusional from years of untreated mental illness, Michael finally unleashed his rage in a psychotic frenzy. There was no attempt to conceal the crime, nor was there ever any doubt as to how this tragedy unfolded.

While the book is disturbing testament to the denial of some families with regard to recognizing and treating serious mental illness, the writing is lackluster and, in many portions, boring enough to bring the average reader to tears. In fact, the book is not even worth the effort tears would require. Waste no more time. Set your sights on some really exceptional True Crime by Kathryn Casey or Jack Olsen.