Permanent Heartache: Portraits of Grief, Hope, Survival and Life After Homicide [Paperback]

Marcella Hammett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2000

Marcella Hammett writes, "It is a sad commentary that parents today must be more concerned with murder than with measles." The headlines are true. Homicide is destroying America. Our families, our friends, and our neighbours are dying at unbelievable rates. More than 20,000 people are murdered each year, leaving thousands behind to struggle with the aftermath of this life-altering event. If you've ever cared or wondered how people cope after their lives have been impacted by homicide, read this book. Marcella Hammett is an epidemiologist by training and a humanitarian at heart. Her life as a researcher was forever changed after attending a Valentine's Day memorial rally for the family members of victims of homicide held in a tiny church in Atlanta in 1994. As a result of that experience, she was inspired to take on this courageous task. Permanent Heartache contains twenty-two testimonials from family survivors in six different cities. In their own words, they memorialise their loved ones and describe an unenviable transformation. With time periods ranging from one to eighteen years after the loss, surviving family and friends take you through the stages of shock, rage, hope, healing, and in some cases even forgiveness.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Marcella Hammett

Product Details

• Paperback: 234 pages
• Publisher: Nova Science Pub Inc (July 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156072630X
• ISBN-13: 978-1560726302
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,661,717 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A rare book, May 18, 2010

By 

C. Ackerman (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Permanent Heartache: Portraits of Grief, Hope, Survival and Life After Homicide (Paperback)

Americans love murder. We're absolutely fascinated by it. It's the core of television shows and if you closed your eyes in the fiction of your library and reached out and grabbed a book, the odds are the novel would contain at least one murder. Indeed, we have multiple genres (mystery, true crime, war, thrillers, etc.) that are devoted to people killing each other.

And it's a sorry statement about how we lie to ourselves that it's extremely difficult to find books about the emotional toll murder plays on the living.

_Permanent Heartache_ is one of the few books that is honest about murder. It is a collection of edited interviews of people who lost someone close to them. The interviews are generally short, in the three to five page range. They focus to varying degrees on four topics: what the person was like (invariably they were saints), how they died (the deaths were all shockingly pointless), how the interviewee found out about the death (these passages are so painfully poignant that it's hard to read much of this book in a sitting) and what life is like after the person is gone.

The aftermath is surprisingly constant and yet not surprising at all: people never really recover from the murder of a loved one. Their lives go on but they've been damaged and forever changed. Time alone doesn't change anything. Indeed, the roll of the seasons can be insulting: it's another Christmas or birthday that the victim is no longer there to celebrate.

This is an important topic, which makes it disturbing that this book was relegated to a very small publisher without much in the way editorial resources. The book, obviously the author's personal mission, has numerous typos, including consistent misspellings. But I suspect that that matters little to anyone reading the book and only serves to underscore our collective dishonesty as movies about `cool' assassins fill multiplexes and video games are lauded for their explosively bloodthirsty graphics.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Congratulations, March 11, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Permanent Heartache: Portraits of Grief, Hope, Survival and Life After Homicide (Paperback)

This book was wonderful. It keep me in tears. Can't wait for the next book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful!!, May 24, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Permanent Heartache: Portraits of Grief, Hope, Survival and Life After Homicide (Paperback)

I felt inspired after reading this book. These brave survivors tought me how to appreciate my children and understand that they could be taken away from me at any moment. I will never drop them off at school, or tuck them in at night without letting them know how much I love them.