Little Girl Fly Away [Hardcover]

Gene Stone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 10, 1994

An in-depth psychological study explores the true story of Ruth Finlay, a childhood rape victim who developed a split personality and who unknowingly wrote herself death threats, culminating in a self-kidnapping and stabbing. 30,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1977 Ruth Finley, 47 years old, married, a mother and living in Witchita, Kans., began to receive disturbing letters. The letters gave way to harassment, which in turn culminated in her kidnapping and stabbing by the elusive criminal dubbed the "Poet." After four frustrating years the case was solved when a new police chief deduced that only Ruth herself could be the Poet. This deeply moving account re-creates not only the supposed crime but also the successful psychotherapy which followed. For five years, Ruth was treated by a psychiatrist named Andrew Pickens, gradually revealing that she had been a victim of childhood sexual abuse and that, while not suffering from multiple personality disorder, she still had the abused little girl in her psyche and that girl, resentful that no one had come to the adult Ruth's aid when her husband was stricken ill, became the Poet. Freelance writer Stone tells Ruth's engrossing, bizarre story with great sensitivity. Photos.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Ruth Finley of Wichita, Kansas led a normal, quiet life with her husband, family, and friends until 1977, when she became the victim of a stalker whom the police named "the Poet." He harassed Ruth through the mail and on the phone, and he even kidnapped and stabbed her. The case remained open and unsolved until 1981, when the chief of police proved that the Poet was Ruth herself. Ruth, however, had no idea of what she was doing, and the last chapters of this account deal with her seven years of psychotherapy. With the help of a doctor, Ruth retrieved memories of severe abuse, both sexual and psychological, at the hands of a neighbor. The Poet had roots in her childhood trauma. This is an unusual and compelling story written in a style that pulls the reader in. Both readers of true crime and psychological accounts will enjoy this book. Highly recommended.
- Lisa J. Cochenet, Plainfield P.L. Dist., Ill.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (April 10, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671780859
• ISBN-13: 978-0671780852
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,586,537 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Left Out Everything I Needed to Know, May 18, 2005

By 

TawnTawn (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Little Girl Fly Away (Hardcover)

The first part of the book which describes 47 year old (hardly "elderly")Ruth and her husband's quiet life, and the following stalking by "The Poet" is well-written and fascinating. But the second part, which mainly recreates Ruth's therapy with Dr. Pickens, leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

Ruth supposedly lived a very quiet life, married to a quiet man, with two grown sons (one a doctor, who refused to participate in the book), working for Southwestern Bell as a secretary, living on a quiet cul-de-sac. The author doesn't bother to check out anything that "happened" to Ruth prior to the first phone call. Her life seems to begin when the Poet comes after her. Threatening phone calls, letters, kidnappings, telephone wire cuttings, presents of feces, and knifings begin to occur when Ruth is supposedly afraid her husband has suffered a heart attack and she will be "abandoned."

Due to her therapy sessions with the ever so sage Dr. Pickens, it's revealed that Ruth suffered horrible sexual abuse at the hands of a neighbor for approximately 6 months when she was 3 years old. She also suffered from a distant, unresponsive mother her whole life, but then so did her brother and sister. But what about her father? He wasn't so bad apparently, but he seems sort of a ghost figure in the family.

At first Dr. Pickens writes in his report that Ruth knew the whole time what she was doing as the Poet, she just didn't know why. Later he changes his mind (you know how psychiatry is) and decided that she suffered from a dissociative state and was not aware of what she was doing. Well, how can that be, when she admitted to the police that she was writing the letters, and even how she had mailed a letter to Oklahoma City and requested that they mail it for her? Ruth knew about the red bandanna material, and told the police there wasn't any more of it. They asked her how she faked the kidnapping and she told them how she took the bus. She DID know what she was doing. Nobody probes this. Ruth denied making the phone calls or setting her Christmas wreath on fire. Supposedly her husband and one of the police officers had heard a man's voice on the phone also. The author doesn't bother to research what Ruth actually did, how she did it, or what she may not have done. The police don't either, they just cart her over to the hospital. Ruth's job at the phone company is "taken away" from her. The newspaper prints that Ruth's four year antics have cost the city around $350,000 for the police to investigate (she's never charged and she doesn't have to pay it back). Ruth gets quite upset about "losing" her job (SWB pays her disability and when she's released for work, they give her a different position), and she gets angry when the newspaper publishes facts about her case.

While what happened to Ruth as a child was infuriating, as an adult, she came across in these pages as rather boring and self-centered. I find it impossible to believe that she wasn't aware of what she was doing, since she had to plan quite a bit to carry off some of these stunts. She mailed bills and personal letters at the same time she mailed "Poet" letters to herself and others, while in the same car as her husband. Did she have the "Poet" letters on top where he could see them? I don't think so. She knew to hide them - so how could she be Ruth, mailing her regular mail, AND the Poet mailing HIS threatening mail at the same time? And why didn't the newspaper make note of who was answering her husband's personal ads to the "Poet"? Who paid the invoices for these ads? Ruth did, of course, but the author doesn't bother to delve into this.

I believe there was a LOT left out about Ruth's prior life. Apparently there was an incident when she was around sixteen where she said a stranger broke into her apartment and "branded" her on both thighs. This was also reported in the newspaper at the time, but no one was ever apprehended for the crime. Did it really happen? Not investigated. I think it's more likely that Ruth was histrionic and had many episodes throughout her life. It appears that no friends or relatives were asked about her adult life, only the time after the poet was revealed to be Ruth.

Ruth was actually quite lucky. Her quiet husband stayed with her and accepted her past hijinks as no big deal, her job paid her disability so she was not financially affected (except by whatever she had to pay of Dr. Picken's bills), she had a nice home, cozy job with retirement, etc., etc. Best of all, she wasn't charged with reporting false crimes and made to pay back all she had cost the city for the police investigation and surveillance (nothing ever happened when she knew the police were watching for the "Poet"). When her mother became elderly, was put in a nursing home, and died, Ruth doesn't appear too upset, because after all, she wasn't too attached to her mom. But when an acquaintance suddenly kisses Ruth, she considers it heinous. Ruth somehow knows how to contact a hit man, and decides to have the acquaintance murdered. She later changes her mind, and the man gets to live. So how does this quiet woman know how to find a hit man?

By the end of the book, I couldn't stand Dr. Pickens. Ruth, a much better poet than the Poet (a poetry book was found by the police in her wastebasket at work), writes him poetry to describe her feelings. Dr. Pickens is a master at defining these poems. Ruth is jealous of his other patients, wants to be his favorite, and wishes he had been her parent instead of her mother. To me, he seemed just as distant, perhaps more, than her mother.

This book will give you a small picture of dissociative disorder (so-called) but I found it disappointingly incomplete, and it did not convince me that Ruth should have been diagnosed with it. The chief of police never bought her story, and neither do I. Pay back the bucks you stole, Ruth.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read, October 25, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Little Girl Fly Away (Hardcover)

Empathetic. Enlightening. A must-read for anyone seriously (and, ahem, ITELLIGENTLY) interested in the topic of MPD.

5.0 out of 5 stars Well written book about a real person., August 8, 2011

By 

Shirley Noble (Wichita, KS USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Little Girl Fly Away (Hardcover)

This is a heart breaking story about a little girl and how it impacted her life growing to an adult. She needed and got the help that would enable her to face her past and conquer it..