Today's Moment of Art

Twilight in the Wilderness, 1860 | Frederic Edwin Church

[personal] My Mother Was Murdered, and That's Why I Oppose the Death Penalty

The Department of Justice recently announced its intention to resume executions. I am appalled by this decision, and this is why:

In 1986, my 70-year-old mother was asleep in her own bed when a teenage neighbor broke into her home, raped her, and then beat her to near death and left her face down in a partially filled bathtub. It was a spectacularly brutal, banner headline crime, called by the District Attorney one of the most heinous in the history of the county.

Even in light of what happened, I am opposed to capital punishment, and I'd like to tell you why. I want to emphasize that I do not speak for anyone else. We all have different experiences, different histories, different internal and external resources. If there is one thing I'd like you to take away from my story, it is that not all the families of murder victims want the perpetrators to be executed.

I believe that capital punishment harms the survivors by interfering with the natural recovery process. In other words, when we focus on revenge instead of healing, we never heal.

A number of years ago, when I was being interviewed about my mother's death, the interviewer said to me, “You seem like such a sweet person. Most of us just aren't that spiritual.” What she meant was, “How could you not want revenge?” What I thought was, You have no idea how angry I was and how much I wanted to hurt the man who did this.

The rage I felt and that I've heard expressed by other murder survivors is so overwhelming, it's hard to find words to describe it. You feel as if your skin is going to crack open and out will pour enough molten hatred to incinerate the entire world. For years after my mother's murder, I obsessed over exactly how I would kill the perpetrator with my bare hands and how much I wanted him to suffer for every moment of terror and pain he'd caused her. The images were so vivid, I couldn't tell if I was awake or dreaming.

Adrenaline-fueled anger enables us to get through those early days and weeks. It sharpens our senses and focuses our thoughts. Our hearts pump faster. Biologically, we are primed to do whatever is necessary to meet the threat. We don't feel our own injuries, either of body or of mind or spirit. All our resources are devoted to our immediate survival. In some circumstances, this lasts only a short period of time. I know people who have lost loved ones to murder, but in that same incident, the murderer was also killed. At the other extreme are instances where the perpetrator is never discovered and the survivors must cope with the nightmare of walking down the street, suspecting every passer-by or wondering if the murderer has taken another life. I know people in that situation, too.

Anger and the craving for revenge are normal reactions when someone you love has been viciously attacked, their dignity as well as their lives stripped from them.  At the same time, these feelings fuel the illusion that retribution erases pain, and popular media constantly reinforce this illusion.

Short Book Reviews: Hearne and Dawson Pervert The Lord of the Rings

No Country for Old Gnomes (The Tales of Pell), by Kevin Hearne and Delilah S. Dawson (Del Rey)

This whimsical anti-fairytale continues loosely after Kill the Farm Boy. If Kill the Farm Boy was an approximate, sort-of take-off of The Princess Bride, No Country for Old Gnomes owes much to The Lord of the Rings. At the core of the book is a quest, although not to destroy a ring. Here the halflings are the bad guys, bent on ethnic cleansing of gnomes, with whom they theoretically co-govern according to an ancient treaty. A fellowship – again, of sorts – sets out to retrieve the original documents and restore justice to the realm. They include not only a pair of gnomes (male and female, equally bearded), a dwarf on his coming-of-age Meadschpringå quest, a halfling attorney who believes in the rule of law, a saltshaker-stealing ovitaur (like a centaur, only sheep and woman) with her heirloom automaton, and a telepathic gryphon.

Besides an occasional comment like: “an ancient dwarf named Sir Gimlet, who was involved with the Fellowship of the String,”or “in a hole in the ground there lived a family of gnomes,” a brief encounter with Tommy Bombastic, and fanciful names like “a gnome whose gname tag read Hippi Pott,” there is a hilarious take on a classic passage:

   Everyone looked to Faucon [the legalistic halfling] as he stepped forward and solemnly knelt before Agape [the ovitaur].
   “I will protect you as we journey to the Great Library. You have my sword.”
   Kirsi [one of the gnomes, a sorceress] stepped forward to kneel, plucking a hir and tying it into an intricate design. “And my cursed bows.”
   Båggi [the dwarf] trotted up and knelt, offering his picnic basket. “And my snacks!”

Several characters from the previous book make guest appearances, both living and ghostly, notably King Gustave who was formerly a goat and hasn’t quite mastered the nuances of being human but makes a decent monarch anyway. As with Kill the Farm Boy, I found the book overlong and unevenly paced, but quite entertaining. No Country for Old Gnomes has more depth and occasional poignancy, which bodes well for the forthcoming The Princess Beard.

The usual disclaimer: I received a review copy of this book, but no one bribed me to say anything in particular about it. Although chocolates and fine imported tea are always welcome.

Today's Moment of Art

White Mountains and Conway Meadows, 1881 | William Keith

Summer 2019 Newsletter

Here's my summer 2019 newsletter. If you want more news like this, plus snippets, freebies, and more, please subscribe here.

Summer in the Redwoods  The spring rains have finally ceased, the garden is bursting with awakening vegetable and flower plants, and it's a bit of a challenge to keep writing when I just want to be outdoors, enjoying the wonderful weather. I often get the sense of how very nourishing this season is. So many of the winter's struggles have been laid to rest, and projects I've been working on are -- like the blossoms and vegetables -- nearing maturity. I send all my friends and readers wishes for a joyous, fruitful summer. Publishing News Announcing A Heat Wave in the Hellers, and Other Tales of Darkover -- the new collection of my Darkover short fiction! With the permission of the Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust, I've gathered all my Darkover short works in one volume. I'm excited about this project for many reasons, including that these are some of my favorite stories, that I got my professional publishing start in Marion's anthologies (Free Amazons of Darkover and the first Sword and Sorceress) and especially that I now have the opportunity to share with you my previously unpublished Darkover tales. The Introduction and Table of Contents are below. In the title story, written as a birthday gift, I sent Marion herself to Darkover to solve a planetary crisis. Needless to say, the gift was received with delight. For the cover, I was delighted to have this beautiful original painting by Hannah M.G. Shapero, who also did the cover for Hawkmistress! A Heat Wave in the Hellers will be released on October 1, 2019, but it's now available for pre-order in ebook and print editions. It will also be available in print through Ingram, so if your local bookstore uses them as a distributor, you can order it. Amazon Kindle here. Print edition here. Barnes & Noble. I'm still working with them, so check pre-order availability soon. Book View Cafe will have both mobi and epub versions, released on October 1.