Customer Reviews

The Bone Woman: A Forensic Anthropologist's Search for Truth in the Mass Graves of Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The book seems to read as a journal that was written up into a book. The majority of the book follows the author's thoughts and observations over a few significant years in her life, in pretty much chronological order. To a reader who's not paying attention, the whole thing might seem like an "I was there" account. However, one gets insight into how the author approaches her work, with careful observation, dispassionate analysis, and contemplation of the pieces to solve a larger puzzle. She also convincingly communicates an underlying enthusiasm and idealism that drew her into the work and maintained interest throughout. The narrative contains many anectodes about kinds of information that bones can reveal, and does a good job of communicating nightmarish conditions in a mass grave and speculation about the atrocities that created them, but concentrating on the interesting problems to be solved rather than going into gratuitous "gross-out" descriptions of the conditions or the violence. (They seem to have left her with a few nightmares, but whether she was having nightmares was never the point of the narrative.)

The writing style is good throughout the book, but the last chapter, which I expected to be some editorial "wrap-up" of the book, turned out to be a real thought-provoker. It's extremely bad form for a reviewer to discuss the ending of a book, and my overpromoting it may lead to dissapointment in some. However, she describes some bigger picture issues and generalities, conclusions about the world that comes from the commonalities of the various cases she worked on. Coming at the end of the book, you can see her conclusions arising out of the same piecing together and contemplation of results for society and political systems that she applied to individual corpses and grave sites. I suspect that these realizations may be one of the primary motivators for her writing the book; it's where the long string of anecdotes becomes a discussion of the world at large. I would like to have seen more of this discussion, but that may be for a later book. I simply trying to say here that it's worthwhile to finish the book.

I may be overly generous giving the book five stars, as it's not the "perfect" book, but I think it should be required reading in some circles. It's certainly one to hold your attention on an extended flight.

It's simply hard to believe that Clea Koff was only 23 years old when she experienced some of the things she describes in this remarkable book. Ms. Koff is a forensic anthropologist who exhumed mass graves in Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo and elsewhere in the 1990s, and kept a meticulous journal of her activities. She's converted that journal to lucid and poetic prose that confronts mortality squarely and underscores the extraordinary inhumanity that human beings are capable of. She writes about the grisliest details with grace, luminosity, accuracy, and even lyricism. This is a must read and I can't recommend it too highly. It's one of those books that can change your life.

Honestly, I am somewhat surprised by the tone and number of negative reviews of this book. While no reviewer would pretend that the Bone Woman is any work of great storytelling, I nonetheless found it to be an intriguing look into a world that I myself can scarcely imagine: that of forensic anthropology.

One regular criticism of the book seems to be that Koff expresses no moments of emotion in the field, whereas she experiences major frustration over certain perceived iniquities in the organization of the excavations. I believe that Koff herself more than addresses this seeming dichotomy when she stresses, early on in the book, her love of her work and her ability to find some measure of peculiar tranquility in excavating the graves, a sense of being party to an act of absolute justice.

Given that approach, I don't think that her apparent lack of emotional trauma in the field is so hard to understand, and her frustrations with the bureaucratic nature of field operations is also in sync with other memoirs written by various NGO or UN workers. I would also suspect that often, professional detachment in the field creates stress that is released via frustrations with intra-staff relations outside of it. Koff was a woman who wished to be completely engaged by her work: the reality of disturbances to that immersion naturally emerge in the text.

With that said, the book itself is no classic; it lacks a sense of greater purpose, or a concept of her work's place in the greater whole. It is field-focused and neither particularly revelatory or particularly insightful.

However, to those interested in humanitarian efforts and in world events, it is an accessible and interesting look into the grisly and yet absolutely necessary work of documenting war crimes' dead.

Take the Bone Woman for what it is: a rare opportunity to get a hands-on feel of what is for most of us and almost unimaginable profession. As an opportunity to see a window into that world, it has value indeed.

about Clea Koff's book, but I was more and more disappointed as the book progressed. Gone was the wisdom of her experience, missing was the self-discovery and introspection, only barely existent was her experience of the people around her who had survived the horrors, and the writing that replaced what had begun to glimmer in the first few chapters was that of a hardened, unhappy woman who seemed stressed out and angry at her coworkers.

This does not mean that the book was completely worthless to me, and for that reason I give it three stars. I think it is an extremely important book, one that examines one step of the process by which someone guilty of genocide comes to justice, and one that pays ample tribute to the remains of the people who cry out for justice.

I hope Clea has found more peace, both with her coworkers and with herself, in the four years since the last part of the book. I did feel as though I was there, experiencing every part of it with her, and she did an ample job of keeping the jargon of her profession to a manageable level -- which was something that had worried me prior to reading the book. She really is a wonderful writer on the face of it, but just needed to focus a bit less on the problems that happened within each mission.

This book was interesting but not one that I would recommend to a friend. If you want to learn more about forensic anthropology, this is something you may enjoy. If you want to learn more about the raw emotions that were involved with these situations, this is not the book for you. The author spends more time talking about "the break down of the team" vs the grieving mothers who protest the search for their loved ones, familiy members searching through clothes to identify bodies, etc.
She prides herself on the fact that she is always smiling, something I found a little off considering the circumstances. There are bloody handprints on the ceiling of a church where hundreds were murdered. It's OK to show some emotion.
There are so many books out there that give a great view into what took place within these countries. If that is what you are looking for, I'd move on to something else.
This is a good one to get from the library if you are interested.

This book delivers an honest and interesting glimpse into the life of a forensic anthropologist/ human rights fighter. I am an anthropology student, so maybe this book would not be as interesting to other people as it was to me, as it does document the nitpicky and often gross details of Koff's work (which I loved). Koff does seem to have a tedious need to tell us about every pat on the back she has ever received, so I docked a star for that. That is my only real complaint about the book.

I actually borrowed this from the library and thought I should write a review so that people don't waste their money on this one. I usually read 400 page plus books within a matter of 2 weeks. This one is 266 pages and I'm still struggling through it. I'm determined to finish it no matter what - but I have to say that the way it is written makes that really difficult. I was drawn to the book by it's subject matter, however as I go through the pages I feel that Clea focuses entirely too much on her relationship with her team mates and I just get a small glimpse into the lives of the victims she excavates. By the end of each chapter I know more about what she ate that day, the condition of the place she slept in and what the team morale was than I do about the circumstances of the genocide and the victims. In essence it feels more like a personal journal than an informative book about the tragedies in Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.

I was surprised to read such negative reviews for a book that I dearly love and have bought twice (after one copy was loaned and not returned). Maybe it's just an anthropology thing. As an anthro grad student who wants to work in the same types of situation that Ms. Koff describes, her book gives insight into her experiences.

This is not a technical book, in fact it reads more like a memoir. So don't expect detailed excavation information, that's not what this book is. And Ms. Koff is young when she goes on these digs (she is just out of her bachelors when she travels to Rwanda). For those who may not know anything about anthropology, this is a big deal. People without a masters degree or with little field experience aren't usually part of these recovery efforts. Ms. Koff was lucky and competent enough to have worked with good professors who had connections and helped her to get on the UN mission. This is not to say she isn't a good scientist, she is, but as many in the field (and in life) know, half the battle is knowing the right person.

Some people seemed to want to see some strong emotional responses by Ms. Koff, and I can understand for most people excavating a mass grave in Rwanda would be horribly traumatic. But this is why some people do this work and others don't. You wouldn't expect a doctor or a firegfighter or a soldier to be so wrapped up in the emotion of the moment that they can't focus and get the job done. She is affected, she discusses what she is seeing, imagines what would she do if something as awful as genocide happened to her, how would she save her mother who suffers from some physical limitations making a quick escape impossible. These are the reactions of a forensic anthropologist who has worked on two long and difficult mass recovery missions.

There is a place for intense sorrow and grief. The book by the head of the UN security mission (his name escapes me) who worked tirelessly and with little resources to save people during the killing in Rwanda is a good example.

Ms. Koff's efforts begin several years after the killings ended. She is an anthropologist who knew what she was getting into and wanted to take on this difficult task to give something of the lost back to their loved ones. This is what a forensic anthropologist does. Becoming overwhelmed by her experiences does a disservice to the same people she is trying to help. She is affected, she feels the responsibility of the mission and her actions and the loss of lives keenly, but she sucks it up and gets the job done. If the Rwandans and Kosovars can bear their losses and continue on, the least she can do is what is expected of her and help them recover their relatives. And this is what she does.

She's competent,confident, but young and you can see the issues that occur when a small group of people are doing dangerous and emotionally wrenching work. This book is a must for anthropology students, especially those wanting to work in mass disaster and human rights situations.

Arrogance does not begin to describe the author's perspective toward those with whom she interacts throughout her little adventure. Her insecurity is clearly derived from an inferiority complex - or god forbid a superiority complex - gone awry while working side-by-side with world-renowned experts in the human rights field. As evidenced in her tales, she does not take criticism well, and always blames personality flaws in others while devoid of any self-critique. Her negative portrayal of those she worked with is often shallow, and demonstrates that she learned little to nothing ABOUT her colleagues, while ironically failing to appreciate all that she did learn FROM them. Sorry you had to share a tent, but grow up, Clea; the real story is NOT about you. Your pettiness is a disservice to the victims who, throughout your book, remained buried under that chip on your shoulder.

Poorly written AND edited. I was expecting an interesting, enlightening story of forensic anthropology and recent political events; instead a story of office politics and one woman's not very compelling career.

The author is arrogant; I wonder what her colleagues think of her version of events? Not a very good writer; I was confused at times of who she was exhuming from what grave, and what part of the body she was speaking of.

How could a book about thousands of murdered people be so lacking in emotion?