Customer Reviews

Beyond All Reason: My Life With Susan Smith

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book made me rather emotional. You learn about two teenagers who meet and fall in love. The young couple is David and Susan, and they both have a far from easy life behind them so far. Susan's parents had a violent relationship, and sometimes Susan's dad would threaten to kill Susan's mum. Three weeks after their divorce Susan's dad commits suicide, and a couple of weeks later Susan's mum remarries. Susan's new step-father sexually abuses her, and when her mum finds out, she decides to stay with her new man. Several members of Susan's family have committed or attempted to commit suicide, and some (like her father) have been too fond of alcohol.

Even though David's family background may not be as bad as Susan's, his life hasn't been too easy either. His father tried to commit suicide, while his mother was very religious. In the end David decides to follow his brother and move in with his grandmother. Another blow happens in his life while he is dating Susan: His brother Daniel dies. Because Susan is pregnant, Susan's mother presses on and the young couple marries two weeks later.

After reading the book and some additional information, I am sitting with the impression that these two should never have started a family. They were far too immature and their troubled background made things even worse. They fight a lot and both have extra-marital affairs. David seems to have big problems in sticking to one woman at the time. Susan's second pregnancy is a tough one, and David seems too immature to face it. He finds new love with Tiffany, and instead of staying with his pregnant wife and baby Michael, he spends his time with her. For a short while David splits up with Tiffany, and she becomes crazy and starts to keep David and his family awake at night. My opinion is that David does little to protect his family during this time.

Shortly after Alexander's birth Susan and David parts again, and just over a year later; in a period of six weeks Susan has four lovers: Her boyfriend, her boyfriend's father, Susan's stepfather and David.

In the middle of all this there are two small innocent babies: Michael and Alexander. They are bystanders, while their parents try to figure out their lives. Their lives gets a very cruel and tragic end when their disturbed mother kills them.

It wasn't difficult to get through the book, even though the narrative is of average quality. Still, the picture of these two innocent children and their father's story about their short lives, make this into a book it is very difficult to forget.

This is the Susan Smith of Union, South Carolina who pushed her car into the lake with her two little boys still strapped in their car seats. This version of the story is written by her husband and the father of the two boys. He tries to be fair and objective in the first person narrative, but he gets in his opinion on everybody involved including his in-laws and the media. He also reveals himself as a loving father, but a guy working two women at the same time. His wife Susan comes across as a kind of sexy but sick psychopath. According to David's story, she killed the boys so that the well-to-do son of a local business owner might be enticed to marry her. He had told her he didn't want a "ready made" family. Kind of like the lions killing the cubs to bring the lionesses into heat, only here the lioness does it herself. If she hadn't confessed, she probably would have gotten away with it, because nobody, including her husband, could believe she'd kill her two cute little boys. There was a lot of sexist sympathy on both sides of this case, but there's no getting around the fact that Susan Smith is a monster. The sad thing is the son of a business man guy probably would never have married her anyway. This is a quick and easy read, but somehow unsatisfying I think because the real depth of the story needs a larger point of view.

This is an incredible book. Instead of writing a book and claiming he was the perfect guy and he was the victim, David told it how it was (unlike Susan Smith's mother, who also wrote a book that basically blamed everyone but Susan and the Russell family). He admitted that he was at times a bad husband. Both he and Susan were immature in their marraige. He made mistakes. But, he and Susan were perfect parents. Which makes this case all the more puzzling.

Why would Susan murder her two boys like this?! I get so angry. At 14, no one my age understands how I feel. All the way through this book, I kept having to stop and ask myself WHY. WHY didn't she give MIchael and Alex to David. WHY didn't she tell anyone that she didn't want those babies anymore. WHY did she drown them? WHY did she let their bodies rot for nine days?!

I sympathize for David. It's happy to report that he has a new wife and two more kids (Savannah and Nicholas), but imagine that, everytime one of your kids do something, everytime something new in a tabloid or the mail shows up about the case, the facts come hurling back to you.

David, you are one strong man!!!

I did agree with the man who said this book is poorly edited, but David Smith did not set out to be a writer. He was just a regular guy until this tragedy happened to him. So I can't criticize him for those mistakes. I honestly believe him when he said he did not write this book to make the money, but instead he felt like it was a step towards the healing process. I feel so sorry for what happened to this man.
The book was a very fast read and very hard to put down from the first page. I really think it was interesting to find out what was actually happening during that 9 day period. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in that story. And, I do agree with David Smith....everyone needs to remember who the REAL victims were.

This book is not only very easy to read and very difficult to put down, but will also make you appreciate what you have and not take it for granted. David Smith went through hell and back, but what I appreciated most about the book, was that he never slandered his ex-wife the way the rest of the world did. He is indeed an honorable man. Also, the fact that he included some of his most private letters and poems that were sent to him about the boys was very touching....

This is an excellent book. It brought me to tears. The love this man had for his children and how his life was shattered by this woman--- so tragic.

So sad, the fact that Susan Smith could murder her own children & still face her family, friends and the media acting as though the children really were kidnapped. Susan lived the lie of the kidnapping for 9-days knowing in her own mind that the children were in a lake dead!. Riveting story!

Susan Smith is the cruellest person I have ever read about. She drove her car into a lake with her two infant sons strapped trustingly in the backseat, then stood on the shore and watched it sink to the murky bottom. She fabricated a story about an alleged carjacker to disguise her sole culpability in this crime. She shed crocodile tears for her estranged husband, her family, friends, the police, the media, and the world, while her murderous secret remained locked inside her noxious heart. She sentenced her boys to death and David to a life of grief. She sits today in prison. She will never on this earth suffer the consequences of what she did.

I started crying two pages into this book, and the tears flowed throughout every aching page. David's pain and suffering is so tragically transmitted to readers that we can almost touch it. But only almost. It is so agonising, so raw, so heartrending, and so horrific, that if Susan Smith were in a room with me I would scream "Why?" repeatedly while pounding her body with my fists!

As I write this, there is a lump in my throat, my jaw is clenched, and the tears are welling up. It is instinctive; I simply can't help myself. I will never forget this story, this book, David, or beautiful and innocent little Michael and Alex. Nor should anyone else. Forgetting them would be like forgetting what it means to be human.

I titled this "pure torture" because the children killed by their mother were pure and were tortured to death -- she watched the car sink into the water. The whole situation also was pure torture for David Smith and his family. I'm sure he still reels from the shock that he could have married someone who would do this to her own child. The writing of this book must've been very painful for David, as is evident in the perfectly-chosen photograph of David on the back jacket of the hardback book. There simply is no excuse for what Susan Smith did. The book answers questions left despite the wide media coverage after Susan finally broke down and admitted to pushing the car in the river. "Why" is a question to which no one will ever receive an acceptable answer, probably not even Susan Smith herself.

I knew of David Smith through a mutual friend of ours,and after hearing of this senseless trajedy bestowed upon him,I knew I had to read this book to learn more about his life with Susan,and how he has dealt with the death of his 2 young sons. I found myself getting very teary eyed when he talked about his children,and could only imagine the pain he must have gone through.I enjoyed the book alot,as it let me know David alot more than I knew him before.