Visiting Hours: A Memoir of Friendship and Murder by Amy Butcher
I received this book from a giveaway on Goodreads.
This is the story of Amy and her friend Kevin. About to graduate from college in Pennsylvania, they go out to celebrate. Kevin walks Amy home, then Kevin brutally stabs his ex-girlfriend to death.
I can understand Amy's obsession with the incident, but my feeling for this book go in completely different directions.
First, I feel, like many people Amy knew told her, that this wasn't her story. Emily doesn't necessarily get lost, but Amy is the main character in this story, and nothing really happened to her. Sure, I can understand survivor's guilt and endlessly pondering the "what if's", but still.
Then the term PTSD comes out. Can a person be traumatically stressed by an event they did not witness or experience? Apparently they can. It's strange to think an affliction that affects so many battle-hardened soldiers could also affect this young woman who was only incidental to the crime.
Kevin had been suicidal and had been taking antidepressants which he stopped cold turkey. Amy didn't recognize the signs while they were occurring and thus didn't make any attempts to help Kevin. Honestly, it's a lot of responsibility to put on a college kid's shoulders, heck, it's a lot to put on anyone's shoulders. She can see where she should have done something now - hindsight, of course. So many different paths to choose and I know she's traveled every one wishing for a different outcome.
This is where my feelings for the book change. The mind. Forget space, this is the last frontier, the undiscovered country, and where is our intrepid crew to bold go where no man can really go? How do you map the workings of an object whose depths can not be plumbed? My thoughts about the beginning of the book are like the mainstream reaction to mental illness, I guess. Depressed? Suicidal? PTSD? You'll get over it; just snap out of it. If only it were that easy.
Throughout the book, Amy tells some of the most random stories, flitting through time and space in her life. It seems very haphazardly put together, until the very end, when she pulls out statistics. She talks about the stigma of mental illness, particularly for males and how something needs to be done. Her writing here is focused and clear and the reading goes quickly. I wish the rest of the book had been as focused, but she raises some important facts. She has no answers, of course, because who does have answers for these questions? Every time someone shoots up a school or movie theatre or random gathering of people, we ask why no one saw the signs that this was on the brink and what could have been done to keep this individual from tipping over. But the news cycle goes on and it passes from public consciousness as quickly as the next commercial break. So perhaps people should read this book, if only to encourage them to talk to each other, to try veer off onto another path before a person reaches the edge of that cliff. As Amy points out, what if they had gone for a pizza instead of for drinks. A small step with profound repercussions.
This is the story of Amy and her friend Kevin. About to graduate from college in Pennsylvania, they go out to celebrate. Kevin walks Amy home, then Kevin brutally stabs his ex-girlfriend to death.
I can understand Amy's obsession with the incident, but my feeling for this book go in completely different directions.
First, I feel, like many people Amy knew told her, that this wasn't her story. Emily doesn't necessarily get lost, but Amy is the main character in this story, and nothing really happened to her. Sure, I can understand survivor's guilt and endlessly pondering the "what if's", but still.
Then the term PTSD comes out. Can a person be traumatically stressed by an event they did not witness or experience? Apparently they can. It's strange to think an affliction that affects so many battle-hardened soldiers could also affect this young woman who was only incidental to the crime.
Kevin had been suicidal and had been taking antidepressants which he stopped cold turkey. Amy didn't recognize the signs while they were occurring and thus didn't make any attempts to help Kevin. Honestly, it's a lot of responsibility to put on a college kid's shoulders, heck, it's a lot to put on anyone's shoulders. She can see where she should have done something now - hindsight, of course. So many different paths to choose and I know she's traveled every one wishing for a different outcome.
This is where my feelings for the book change. The mind. Forget space, this is the last frontier, the undiscovered country, and where is our intrepid crew to bold go where no man can really go? How do you map the workings of an object whose depths can not be plumbed? My thoughts about the beginning of the book are like the mainstream reaction to mental illness, I guess. Depressed? Suicidal? PTSD? You'll get over it; just snap out of it. If only it were that easy.
Throughout the book, Amy tells some of the most random stories, flitting through time and space in her life. It seems very haphazardly put together, until the very end, when she pulls out statistics. She talks about the stigma of mental illness, particularly for males and how something needs to be done. Her writing here is focused and clear and the reading goes quickly. I wish the rest of the book had been as focused, but she raises some important facts. She has no answers, of course, because who does have answers for these questions? Every time someone shoots up a school or movie theatre or random gathering of people, we ask why no one saw the signs that this was on the brink and what could have been done to keep this individual from tipping over. But the news cycle goes on and it passes from public consciousness as quickly as the next commercial break. So perhaps people should read this book, if only to encourage them to talk to each other, to try veer off onto another path before a person reaches the edge of that cliff. As Amy points out, what if they had gone for a pizza instead of for drinks. A small step with profound repercussions.
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