DEAR MADMAN by Edwina Shaw

Edwina Shaw shines a direct and bright light on evil and society’s role in it by weaving fact, creative non-fiction, and memoir in this exploration of generational trauma. Who would imagine that an account of horrific murder and its consequences could be both frightening and tender?

There’s a wide vulnerability between the pages that I suspect the author grappled with as she researched and wrote. I hope she knows it was worth it. By sharing the impact that a brutal crime had on her family and by taking us into the mind of the killer, we might come closer to an understanding.

As a society, our neglect and maltreatment of children at risk creates the monsters we revile. 

But then:

…it can’t be only circumstance that creates murderers. Another indefinable darkness comes into play. 

DEAR MADMAN is a clever, creative and confronting work.