Customer Reviews

Unspeakable Acts

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While not wonderfully organized, this powerful book is a must read for any Early-childhood professional, social worker, Family Sciences professional, or advocate of children. At times the misplaced zeal of the author led to ramblings that were a real challenge to unravel, but the content is so amazing and the topic so well hidden in our society that you must plow on through!

The horrific nature of the acts described in this book break my heart at the same time that I applaud the courage of those parents and children who took a stand. The author's heroic efforts to describe in detail what most of us would never hope to imagine has my gratitude. Our system is still flawed but Hollingsworth's work has made a lasting mark that continues to benefit children and families fighting child abuse.

This book documented history in the making and is a lesson from which we can all learn. I highly recommend it!

This book is the detailed story of the case of Frank and Illeana Fuster and the Country Walk, Florida case of child abuse in a day care center. It was recently rehashed on PBS' Frontline, and low and behold! there are more questions now than ever before!

I read this book in the early 1990s and was mesmerized by all the accounts of so-called sexual abuse of children in day care centers. But guess what, since that time, there have been virtually no incidents of such a thing! I live near Los Angeles, and I watched with great interest the McMartin PreSchool case around the same time wherein all the defendents were eventually acquitted of hundreds of counts of child sexual abuse.

The theory used to be "Why would a child lie? You can trust what a child says. Where else would a child hear these (crude) sexual terms and know about sexual acts?" But times have changed........And interview techniques for children have come under scrutiny and have been left lacking, to say the least.

Why were there so many of these cases ten years ago, and none now? Is the media just not reporting it? Is it not happening anymore? Did it ever happen?

This was truly a mesmerizing book and I remember thinking it was a journalistic reportage and therefore unbiased, but now I'm not so sure. Illeana was eventually deported after serving some time in prison, but because she testified against her husband, Frank is still in prison, serving a 165 year term. Has justice been done in this case?

If you can find a copy of this huge book, read it with an unbiased eye, and remember, while you are reading it, that it was, or may have been, written during one of the USAs many "witch hunts". (Why do we still have them?) This is a very readable and shocking book. Too bad it isn't still in print because it is a very important book, as well.

Jan Hollingsworth has given us a glimpse of the "early days" when childhood sexual abuse was breaking ground in this country, and specifically in a Miami, Florida suburb, and this was also the time when Janet Reno was the ambitious Attorney General in Florida, and had to make some hard decisions to prosecute this case.

Hollingsworth is a newspaper reporter, and she follows the story of Frank and Illeana Fuster, who owned Country Walk Babysitting Service, and two years later, Frank Fuster, who'd also been a convicted child molester, would be convicted of 14 counts of child sexual abuse and sentenced to 165 years in prison.

This is a remarkable story and it's a powerful one at that. In the beginning when the children began to wake up in the middle of the night screaming, and started to develop strange rashes or seemed at time to be dazed and groggy, the signs were often overlooked by their parents. This is a true story, and it covers the suburb's triumph and tragedy, and the parents who bitterly and bravely faced the truth in the face of Defense Attorneys who wanted to "clear the accused."

This is also terrifying reading, and when I read it, I couldn't put it down. But it was telling, and as I read through the accounts of the convicted, and what happened at this child care center, and the children who were victimized, it gave me even more insight into the predators which I've dealt with on a daily basis for the last 20 years.

Be forewarned - this is not easy reading, and it is disturbing. But it's also highly recommended!!!

Hollingsworth details the experiences of the parents and children in the Country Walk case with clarity and compassion. The book provides a window onto the complex and intersecting legal, media and psychological issues in ritual abuse cases.

From the outset, Hollingsworth's viewpoint on the case is clear, and the post hoc criticisms that she lacks 'objectivity' are ridiculous. When it comes to child sexual assault, nobody is 'objective', and Hollingsworth's heart is on her sleeve for all to see.

The artistry of the book can be seen in it's articulation of the difficulties that faced each parent in coping with their child's disclosures. Hollingsworth's admiration for the parents-turned-advocates of the Country Walk children is infectious, and it sustains the reader throughout an otherwise difficult journey.

A powerful book that speaks to the truth of what happened at Country Walk Day Care. "Witch Hunts" my foot! These children are still alive, and still live among us, and still suffer the traumatizing effects of what happened to them, as do their families and anyone close to them who has been affected by Frank and Iliana Fuster and whoever they were working with and for.

It is true that a majority of visible nay-sayers have said that the history of ritualized child abuse in this country is nothing more than a "hoax." Consider the source. And consider who benefits.

The ritualized sexual abuse of children continues. The media coverage does not. The hidden agenda of those who would kidnap and torture children remains hidden, and children continue to disappear.

"Unspeakable Acts" speaks to the issue of those acts that remain, so to speak, unspeakable. Survivors have been efficiently silenced -- but not entirely. The story is not over yet.

It is too bad this book is out of print -- but it is still possible to find a copy, and it is well worth having. It is powerful and volatile history, and yes, "another brick in the wall."

I read this book years ago, before the wave of ritual-abuse-debunking. Even then, it made me uneasy. The charges seemed too numerous and too baroque, and the passion of those investigating and prosecuting verged on religious mania, in no way admitting of doubt, conflict, or exculpatory evidence. I fear a miscarriage of justice has been done.

Read the book as a social document of our culture's obsession at that time and how it played out, but don't expect to finish it feeling you know the truth of what really happened.

I read this book when it first came out, when we were more likely to believe these stories, even so by the end of it I knew it couldn't be true. As has been proved since. What Hollingsworth nowhere reveals is that she was actively involved in this case. She made the first complaint against the defendants on behalf of a friend and quit her job to become a paid consultant to the Bragas - a prime pair of frauds.

So remember, if you read it, that it's by no means an impartial account. And the author to this day has to admit the damage that she did while promoting one of the sorrier episodes in the satanic ritual abuse panic that swept the country in the 80s.