If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation [Paperback]

Janine Latus (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2008

In April 2002, Janine Latus's youngest sister, Amy, wrote a note and taped it to the inside of her desk drawer. Today Ron Ball and I are romantically involved, it read, but I fear I have placed myself at risk in a variety of ways. Based on his criminal past, writing this out just seems like the smart thing to do. If I am missing or dead this obviously has not protected me...

That same spring Janine Latus was struggling to leave her marriage -- a marriage to a handsome and successful man. A marriage others emulated. A marriage in which she felt she could do nothing right and everything wrong. A marriage in which she felt afraid, controlled, inadequate, and trapped.

Ten weeks later, Janine Latus had left her marriage. She was on a business trip to the East Coast, savoring her freedom, attending a work conference, when she received a call from her sister Jane asking if she'd heard from Amy. Immediately, Janine's blood ran cold. Amy was missing.

Helicopters went up and search dogs went out. Coworkers and neighbors and family members plastered missing posters with Amy's picture across the county. It took more than two weeks to find Amy's body, wrapped in a tarpaulin and buried at a building site. It took nearly two years before her killer, her former boyfriend Ron Ball, was sentenced for her murder.

Amy died in silent fear and pain. Haunted by this, Janine Latus turned her journalistic eye inward. How, she wondered, did two seemingly well-adjusted, successful women end up in strings of physically or emotionally abusive relationships with men? If I Am Missing or Dead is a heart-wrenching journey of discovery as Janine Latus traces the roots of her own -- and her sister's -- victimization with unflinching candor. This beautifully written memoir will move readers from the first to the last page. At once a confession, a call to break the cycle of abuse, and a deeply felt love letter to her baby sister, Amy Lynne Latus, If I Am Missing or Dead is an unforgettable read.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. At age 37, Janine Latus's younger sister, Amy, was strangled to death by her live-in boyfriend, bundled in a plastic tarp and buried beside a remote country road. It was a wretched end to a too-short life, one frequently marked by disappointment, sadness and struggle. In the hands of a less gifted writer, Amy's story might stand only as an encomium or a cautionary tale: a glimpse into the life of one abused woman, representative of thousands like it. But Latus weaves a double strand. Part memoir, part biography, the book (which grew out of an article in O Magazine) explores Latus's own relationships with abusive men—and her eventual emancipation from a marriage riven by emotional and physical violence. Latus has a spare, economical style, softened by an undercurrent of humor and marked by a total absence of self-pity. When on a ski vacation, a boyfriend brutally beats her, breaking several of her ribs and her nose—and then makes love to her, in a twisted form of penance—Latus doesn't wince in the retelling. She lets ambiguities and contradictions abide: she loved her husband, even as he humiliated and hurt her. Had things been slightly different, she seems to say, she—and not Amy—might have perished at the hands of her partner. Unforgettable, unsentimental and profoundly affecting, Latus's book resonates long after the final page is turned. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Having suffered through a childhood of rebellion against an abusive father and escaped to an uncertain early adulthood, Latus maintained contact with her family, particularly her younger sister, Amy. Whereas Janine was thin and obsessed with her appearance, Amy was overweight. Both were in abusive relationships, each giving a highly edited version of her life to her sister. Janine painfully records the slow erosion in her own self-image—too eager to please men, even going so far as to have breast implants—while she chronicles Amy's struggle with weight, divorce from an alcoholic, and eventual enrollment in college. Janine explores her own self-justification for taking abuse from her husband, citing his devotion, passion, and attempts to keep the marriage together. All the time, she recognizes the looks of her stepchildren—the cringing against imminent explosions—as feelings she and her siblings had had growing up with a volatile and abusive father. When Amy is murdered by yet another unsuitable man, Janine confronts the cost that women pay for pretending that all is well. A heartbreaking look at domestic violence. Bush, Vanessa --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (April 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743296540
• ISBN-13: 978-0743296540
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (189 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #822,964 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Since If I Am Missing or Dead was published in 2007 I've written a novel for teens that shows them the red flags of a budding abusive relationship. We're shopping for a publisher now. I also have had the opportunity to give hundreds of speeches and have met the most remarkable people doing the good work of helping people avoid and recover from emotional and physical abuse. It is a joy, as is the rest of my life. For people in the midst of high-drama relationships I want to say this: being free is wonderful. I wake up every morning at peace. It's hard to go from being in the midst of an abusive relationship to being truly free but it is absolutely worth it.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A weight we all must carry....., July 21, 2007

By 

B. A Libby (Camano Island, Wa United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation (Hardcover)

Janine Latus was born into a family where babies happened frequently. Janine's own twin dies of crib death, and her mother almost hemorrhages to death after one difficult birth. Years later, when Janine asked her father why they kept having children when it was so hard on her mother, her father answers her, "men have needs". And from this attitude, a man with several daughers begins the string of abuse that ends with the death of one, and the soul crushing subversion of another to men's needs. Janine's father objectifies females, feeling free to comment on their relative sexuality, figures, and odds of getting a husband. With this as a beginning, each Latus girl sets off to define her life and herself, crippled with a view of women so skewed that abuse and deceit were almost pre-destined. This book is a journey one woman takes through life with her self-loathing already programmed in. It takes her on a terrible journey. The only thing it did not do is end in her death. That fate belongs to her sister. Janine views her own life, her little deaths of ego and self-reliance unsparingly. She also sends a message of love and understanding for her sister's self-destructive actions. It is a hard message to digest. Every woman who has ever kept her mouth shut for fear of angering her husband, has ever put a man's needs above her own, has ever viewed herself as primarily a sexual being, will be hit in the gut by this book. And if the men who read this are astute, they will be overwhelmed by the terrible responsibility of raising a daughter in a world where the message of sexuality and lack of value of women is pervasive. This is a fast, good, read, but the message lingers long after the last page is finished.

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Like a frog in cold water you can slowly turn up the heat and boil it to death and it won't even know it." - Jane Latus Emmert, June 15, 2007

By 

An Enthusiast (Cardiff-by-the-Sea, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation (Hardcover)

I love this quote I read on one of the other Latus sister's website in an article talking about how insidious psychological and emotional abuse is to the person being abused.

I read this book in two days and it was an incredibly compelling read for me. I am still in the recovery/wreckage assessment process after the ending of my own marriage to an emotionally and psychologically abusive man that completely decimated my self- esteem. The author's honesty is astonishing if not painful to read how she accepted her husband's humiliation and treatment of her as an object that he controlled (painful for me, since I did the same). Given on my own situation, this book was incredibly helpful for me to get some perspective on how I let myself remain in an abusive relationship. I too loved my husband deeply and went through a similar cycle of placating, then rebellion, then anger at his controlling, manipulative, jealous behavior. One of the hardest things for me in escaping the relationship has been having friends and family understand and accept what I went through. Like the author's marriage, from the outside we seemed like the perfect couple. Unlike the author, though, I rarely shared what was happening inside the marriage and my husband kept me isolated from friends and family like her husband did as well. It seems like if your husband does not physically beat you (my husband would get physically violent when he became enraged - shoving, pinning me down or up against a wall, grabbing me, poking me with his finger forcefully over and over in my chest - but he never punched in the eye or broke a bone or anything) then people don't seem to accept that you have been in an abusive relationship. My ex is the picture of charm and has a 'big teddy bear' persona about him to the outside world. People didn't believe me!

The only thing I would have liked to have seen in this book is more retrospection on why the author thinks she and her sister chose these abusive men and tolerated this behavior. Definitely the portrayal of the father implies that this was the genesis of the behavior, but I would have liked to have seen more direct analysis and ties to how the author thinks he effected her and her sister and maybe even why these two family members were effected but none of the other siblings were.

Lastly, I also credit this book with helping me recognize that I am in the early stages of getting involved with a man who is another abuser. I just started dating again (after 2 years of hiatus) and met someone I thought was special, but with a few "problems". Her murdered sister's own journal excerpts where she is rationalizing the abusive behavior she is enduring made me realize that I am still doing the same thing. There is NEVER a reason to accept abusive behavior from someone.

38 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Harrowing and Beautiful Read, May 10, 2007

By 

R Munoz (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation (Hardcover)

I couldn't put this book down and it's still haunting me. It tells

the story of two sisters who definitely hook up with the wrong men,

but it's also an examination of how easily it is to become isolated

in one's own pain to the point where there are no options. Although

Amy Latus and her sister, author Janine, were close enough to talk a

few times a week, Amy never revealed how dire her situation was and

Janine only found out through a note, when it was too late. The

writing in this book is beautiful, but the most powerful element is

the poignancy of the author telling her story to save other women,

even if she couldn't save the sister she loved and thought she knew.

This is a stirring work of journalism and a very worthwhile read.