A review by valentona_
Una stanza piena di gente by Daniel Keyes

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Before expressing my opinion I truly want to congratulate myself with the author, Daniel Keyes, because I think he did an excellent job. The narrative techinique is simple and elementary but the structure is complex and the more accurate for the storytelling. 

It must be very difficult to organize the events and reconstruct the facts, mostly because the main character, Billy S. Milligan, affected by DID, because of his deseas, has memory lapses.

Furthermore the story is truthful and absolutly not romanticized. The reading was smooth and detailed despite the complexity of the content. 

It was such an interesting and touching story that I really enjoy. 

A friend of mine suffer from DID and this book (recommanded by her) really has opened my mind and helped me getting in touch to new realities.

It was also very challenging, not just because it is not easy to understand the concept of different personalities leaving in the same body; but also because I really couldn’t take a side. As a woman, I can feel the pain of the victimis being raped, but on the other side I couldn’t be angry with Milligan, even if I’m that kind of person who does not agree to feel more empathy and understanding towards the aggressor. 

I’m greatful that Keyes do not justify Milligan’s actions, besides someone complain about the fact it is not right feeling compassion over a criminal. 

I just want to say that you are not feeling empathy for the criminal who committed rapes, but for a human being who, due to his traumatic past, has manifested psychological disorders that led him to perform such horrible actions.

One of the things that I appreciate is that the authour describe, without being openly argumentative, how the judicial system and the journalism are unfair. The public opinion is manipulated, functional to politic propaganda.

The author is analytic without being dramatic or heartbreaking. There’s not pathos, only facts. 

I especially love the biography of Milligan. It’s clear how and why the different personalities are born. Each one is born with a purpose: protect billy, using their different capacity. They’ve made a documentary about Billy and I’m sorry they’ve decide to entitled: “the monsters living in Billy Milligan”. Hello? It’s excatly what his personalities were afraid of: being called monsters. Moreover they literally saved Billy’s life. Calling them monsters is misleading and the proof some people don’t understand an F, just want to make money over a scoop.