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re_oanslay's review
5.0
True crime has been a fascination of mine since I was a kid (thanks, mom!) but often the genre focuses on the gore. Like many interested in the topic, there’s the grotesque curiosity in me wants to look the darkest aspects of humanity in the eye and still be around after. “Alligator Candy” is not that kind of true crime story. It’s a love song for a beloved brother and an examination of grief. The writing is stunning and, oftentimes, tragic. I would love to find more like this in the genre.
anitaofplaybooktag's review
3.0
A cross between a memoir and a true crime story, David relates the story of his brother, Jonathan Kushner, who was a murder victim at the age of 11. Interestingly, he shows the murder through his own eyes at various ages . . .he was only four when his brother died. As an adult, he fully investigated the story, and the end of the book fills in all the specifics. The book is well written, and David tries to build suspense by only delving out the crime details in small amounts throughout the book, but somehow it lacked emotion for me. The author tells how he feels, but somehow the emotional depth isn't conveyed to the reader. At least it wasn't for me.
jlmb's review
5.0
Beautiful, devastating memoir. I made the mistake of reading it while on the subway and had to stop because my eyes were welling up with tears. A very heartfelt, very moving book about a man coming to terms with the murder of his older brother. Since the author was not quite 5 when his 11 year old brother was kidnapped and killed coming home from buying candy at the nearby 7-11, he had only disjointed & unclear memories. This memoir is an attempt to rectify that sense of unknowing he still had about the event.
His portrayal of his parents was marvelous; I really got a sense of them as people. They seemed like awesome parents to have. They had to deal with the devastation of their child being missing and then found murdered but it didn't destroy them. Of course, their grief was profound but they didn't attempt to mask it with booze or gambling or affairs. Instead, they reached out to the community - to their synagogue , their neighbors, their work colleagues, their friends & family, to therapists and doctors....even though they all struggled, they didn't let the tragedy destroy them.
I related to this book a lot because the author is my age & his two older siblings are the ages of my older siblings. His descriptions of childhood in the 70s - all the kids running around the neighborhood having adventures instead of going on playdates and after school activities - was my childhood. The tv shows, the clothes, the music etc struck a chord with me.
After his brother's death, the neighborhood attempts to make the area safer by having houses who have parents(ok, moms) at home after school display a helping hand sign in their front window. OMG, that was in my neighborhood growing up too. I had completely forgotten about it until I read about it here. I have vague memories of a kidnapping in my neighborhood and the signs appearing after that. I wish I could ask my parents about it but they are both gone. A girl was walking to the middle school a few blocks from my house and was grabbed. I wish I could recall more. I do have a vivid memory of the hand sign because we had one in our window.
Some quotes from the book that struck me:
Kids grow up hearing fairy tales, but the biggest fairy tale of all, I realized at the age of four, is that life is safe. Life isn't safe, I learned. It's crazy. Evil is real. One minute you could be riding your bike on the way to get candy, and the next, you're dead. Anything could happen anywhere at any time. So now what? How was I supposed to live without giving in to the fear?
That was the end of innocence and the belief that if you associated with like people, and you were loving and you were nurturing of one another, that somehow you weren't going to be touched by evil.
My parents had to find some way to survive this themselves but also to support and nurture Andy and me through the chaos as well.
I began to appreciate even more how the 3 C's - community, compassion and connection - are, perhaps, the fundamental ways that people survive not only death but also any kind of struggle and horror in life.
Could we use grief in a positive way to inform our other relationships, our ongoing relationships and relationships that are yet to come?
(from his mother's diary) Time goes by, days spill on, routines, appointments, diversions, some fun, a trip, somebody sick, on & on, times goes and grief finds a niche, a place, and settles in and goes along too, included in everything.
(talking to one of the cops who worked on his brothers case, who was helping the family protest at one of the killer's first parole board hearing) He wanted to know how dramatic we wanted him to be at the parole hearing the next day. Plenty, we said; we wanted to do whatever we could to keep this guy in prison. The deputy reached into a gym bag and pulled out a large heavy metal rod - the exact kind of drill bit that Tillman had used to strike my brother. He said that, during his statement, he could take out the drill bit and crash it on the table to show the parole board what Jon had endured. We told him to go for it.
His portrayal of his parents was marvelous; I really got a sense of them as people. They seemed like awesome parents to have. They had to deal with the devastation of their child being missing and then found murdered but it didn't destroy them. Of course, their grief was profound but they didn't attempt to mask it with booze or gambling or affairs. Instead, they reached out to the community - to their synagogue , their neighbors, their work colleagues, their friends & family, to therapists and doctors....even though they all struggled, they didn't let the tragedy destroy them.
I related to this book a lot because the author is my age & his two older siblings are the ages of my older siblings. His descriptions of childhood in the 70s - all the kids running around the neighborhood having adventures instead of going on playdates and after school activities - was my childhood. The tv shows, the clothes, the music etc struck a chord with me.
After his brother's death, the neighborhood attempts to make the area safer by having houses who have parents(ok, moms) at home after school display a helping hand sign in their front window. OMG, that was in my neighborhood growing up too. I had completely forgotten about it until I read about it here. I have vague memories of a kidnapping in my neighborhood and the signs appearing after that. I wish I could ask my parents about it but they are both gone. A girl was walking to the middle school a few blocks from my house and was grabbed. I wish I could recall more. I do have a vivid memory of the hand sign because we had one in our window.
Some quotes from the book that struck me:
Kids grow up hearing fairy tales, but the biggest fairy tale of all, I realized at the age of four, is that life is safe. Life isn't safe, I learned. It's crazy. Evil is real. One minute you could be riding your bike on the way to get candy, and the next, you're dead. Anything could happen anywhere at any time. So now what? How was I supposed to live without giving in to the fear?
That was the end of innocence and the belief that if you associated with like people, and you were loving and you were nurturing of one another, that somehow you weren't going to be touched by evil.
My parents had to find some way to survive this themselves but also to support and nurture Andy and me through the chaos as well.
I began to appreciate even more how the 3 C's - community, compassion and connection - are, perhaps, the fundamental ways that people survive not only death but also any kind of struggle and horror in life.
Could we use grief in a positive way to inform our other relationships, our ongoing relationships and relationships that are yet to come?
(from his mother's diary) Time goes by, days spill on, routines, appointments, diversions, some fun, a trip, somebody sick, on & on, times goes and grief finds a niche, a place, and settles in and goes along too, included in everything.
(talking to one of the cops who worked on his brothers case, who was helping the family protest at one of the killer's first parole board hearing) He wanted to know how dramatic we wanted him to be at the parole hearing the next day. Plenty, we said; we wanted to do whatever we could to keep this guy in prison. The deputy reached into a gym bag and pulled out a large heavy metal rod - the exact kind of drill bit that Tillman had used to strike my brother. He said that, during his statement, he could take out the drill bit and crash it on the table to show the parole board what Jon had endured. We told him to go for it.
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