Janeology
Jul 21, 2009
Janeology
Author: Karen Harrington
Publisher: Kunati
Publication Date: 2008
ISBN: 978-1-60164-020-8
How would you like to experience the most horrible tragedy imaginable, then months later find yourself on trial for the crime of inattention?
This is what happens to Tom. He comes home from work one day and discovers that his wife, Jane, has committed the most atrocious of crimes - she has killed their toddler son and almost killed his twin sister. When he left for work that morning she had been singing happily and feeding the children breakfast. What could possibly have broken her mind like that to make her commit the unthinkable?
Jane is declared insane and sentenced to a mental institution. Tom spends that year of the trail nursing his daughter back to health and slowly drinking himself into a stupor.
Suddenly, he himself is put on trial. The courts decide that Tom should have noticed Jane was going insane and should never have left her alone with the children.They decide that perhaps he is to blame for his son's death.
The story that follows is his attorney's attempt to prove that Tom has no other fault but inattention and that he could never have stopped Jane as she came from a long line of violent ancestors and the violence that she showed was in her genes just simmering to get out from the time she was born.
While the book has a very interesting premise and really makes you think about your ancestry - it's also incredibly frightening. How often do you think you know someone very well and they suddenly do something completely unexpected? How would you like to know that the court system could blame you for a crime someone else commits because you should have known they might act in that manner? That it's your fault.
That is a very, very scary thought.
