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Facing the Wind: A True Story of Tragedy and Reconciliation

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Overview

Robert and Mary Rowe's second child, Christopher, was born with severe neurological and visual impairments. For many years, the Rowes' courageous response to adversity set an example for a group of Brooklyn mothers who met to discuss the challenges of raising children with birth defects.

Editorial Reviews

This is the haunting story of Robert Rowe, a respected lawyer, loving husband, doting father and multiple murderer. It is also the story of the mothers of disabled children who came together at Brooklyn's Industrial Home for the Blind as members of a support group before the heyday of self-help gurus and groups for every affliction. Rowe was one of the few fathers actively involved with the group, and he was highly admired by the mothers. The book reveals Rowe's slide into mental illness, which led to his murdering his entire family, and his journey in life after the murder. For anyone interested in how parents cope with disabled children or how mental illness can strike anyone, this book will be a fascinating read. Well written and heavily researched, it clearly demonstrates Salamon's (The Christmas Tree, LJ 9/15/96) prowess and her journalistic roots. Readers will not easily forget this tale. Recommended, especially for true crime/psychology collections. Karen Sandlin Silverman, Ctr. for Applied Research, Philadelphia Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Julie Salamon

Julie Salamon is an author, journalist, and critic whose books include The Devil's Candy (a national bestseller), The Net of Dreams, White Lies, and The Christmas Tree - a New York Times bestseller that has appeared in seven languages. Formerly a reporter and movie reviewer for The Wall Street Journal, she is now a television critic for The New York Times. Her writing has also appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Vanity Fair, the Los Angeles Times, and The New Republic. Salamon lives in New York City with her husband and their two children.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Random House Inc

Filesize

665.27 KB

Number of Pages

320

eBook ISBN

9780375507014

Awards

  • ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards

Excerpt from: Facing the Wind by Julie Salamon

Chapter 1

The Beginning

When Bob Rowe first laid eyes on Mary Savage, he immediately began thinking of ways to improve her. It was 1950, and he was sitting in the cafeteria at St. John's University, in downtown Brooklyn. He watched her bounce across the room, nineteen years old, meeting and greeting like a ward heeler. She
wasn't tall, but she moved with a big stride.

Good figure, he thought-maybe a little heavy in the hips. He decided the quilted skirt she was wearing was the problem. "That's got to go," he said to himself, and later recorded his thoughts in a journal.

A girl at Bob's table waved Mary over and Bob asked to be introduced. Her blue eyes, so tiny that they almost disappeared when she smiled, held the promise of mischief. As she stood there laughing and talking, he studied her for signs of ambivalence or anxiety but saw only a straightforward
appreciation of life.

He had decided when he was eleven years old that he was going to move out of the social class to which he'd been born; his father had been an electrician for the Tastee Bread Company. Now he saw a girl who could help him with his plan. It didn't matter when he found out that Mary's family was even poorer than his. She didn't need money to be a good partner for him.

"Drive-that's what Mary was," he wrote. "Pure drive." He wasn't surprised to learn she'd been class president at St. Joseph's Commercial High School.

Mary Savage's mother, Laura, didn't want her daughter, her only child, to have anything to do with Bob Rowe. The Savages were so poor that they couldn't afford to fix the ceiling when it started falling in on them, piece by piece. Not many people were below them on the social scale, so Laura Savage used religion as her measuring stick. She looked down her nose at anyone who wasn't Catholic, and Bob was Lutheran. She addressed him, with neither irony nor affection, as "you Protestant bastard."

Bob and Mary maneuvered around the religion problem by having Jack O'Shaughnessy pick Mary up when she and Bob had a date. It was easy enough. Jack lived near Mary in Bay Ridge, and he would do almost anything for his fraternity brother-and closest friend-at St. John's. Jack would bring Mary
to the DeKalb Avenue subway station and hand her off to Bob.