After finishing "This Is Not Civilization" (see entry following), I immediately snatched American Taboo : A Murder in the Peace Corps from the pile. Now this is a "true crime" story that rings frighteningly true. I simply could not put it down. It is about the murder of Deb Gardner, a confused 23-year old from Washington state, by a fellow Peace Corps volunteer in 1976. The book was favorably reviewed in the Washington Post Book Review, and that postive account, linked below, was if anything, an understatement. The story is incredible, so incredible, it must be really true.
Not only are the characters realistic, but Weiss ties together people who were trying to run away from their past. Then and now. In the island paradise of Tonga, in the woods of Idaho, in the streets of Brooklyn. The descriptions of Peace Corps life are unlike any that I've read before, but seem pretty accurate to someone who lived through the Ford and Carter years.
Imagine the characters in Rosenberg's novel tracked down by a nosy reporter, in real life. Then imagine the stakes are much, much higher. Life and death. Throw in government conspiracy and cover-up, family melodramas, and scenery from Alaska to Washington, DC to the South Seas. And a fantastic trial in Tonga. An OJ Simpson-style event that has never been forgotten on the island.
It is absolutely gripping, chilling, shocking, funny, sad, tragic, ironic, and you name it. And underneath it all is a subtext, unspoken except for one reference to "rachmones." Weiss is telling the story of a Jewish science whiz from Brooklyn who murdered a pretty girl because she rejected him and got away with it--because he did it in the Peace Corps, an organization more concerned with "the cause" than with justice. So concerned that not only is his record cleared, but he is rewarded with a good government job.
How could Stalin, Hitler, Mao and others murder millions and get away with it? Just the way Dennis could get away with murder Tonga. He was a brilliant psychopath who gamed the system. However, in the end, Weiss seems to argue, Dennis was his own victim as well, for he brought shame upon his family--his mother died an early death, according to Weiss out of heartbreak at her son's crime. His brother tells the reporter, "I have no brother." Etc.
Weiss, himself Jewish, implies in his passionate telling of this awful crime that Dennis shamed not only the Peace Corps, America, his family, and himself, but that he also shamed the Jewish people.
Although no one had directly confronted Dennis about the murder for over twenty years. Weiss decided to do so after he learned that the Tongan tradition is for a criminal to ask forgiveness of his victim's family.
Weiss tracked down and confronted the murderer for himself, documented in the memorable climax of this book.
Set in the 70s, this story in some respects is like a real-life episode of CBS's "Cold Case." But scarier. And the characters are unfortunately very believable.
Wouldn't be surprised if "American Taboo" were to become a film, someday in the not too distant future. It rings true.
