There have been two brutal stories dominating the news the past few days in NYC. A wife reported to authorities that her husband, an NYPD officer, had been hatching a plot with two other men to abduct, cook and eat women. And a nanny went berserk and stabbed the two toddlers in her care, and then plunged the knife into her own neck, only to survive. In the first case, I cannot imagine the state of mind of the wife, who discovered the man she loved and thought she knew is a monster. In the second, the parents’ grief is just as unimaginable. Whenever I set up the floating book shop in Park Slope, I see many children in strollers pushed by nannies. I do not understand how a parent could leave a child in the care of a total stranger. I’m sure 99.99% of nannies are fine, but I wouldn’t risk it. I’d rather be dirt poor, on welfare, than leave my child with a stranger, although some children have suffered abuse at the hands of a family member. Such events give rise to the debate over evil. In my youth, I wanted to believe that it did not exist, that heinous acts were the product of environment. Eventually, I came to believe that evil is real, that some people have a predisposition to it despite environment, and others have a latency aroused by environment. In my first novel,
Close to the Edge, I delved into the mind of someone who eventually crosses the line. In my youthful arrogance, while writing it, I believed I was making the definitive statement on the subject, despite only a layman’s credentials. I now laugh grudgingly at that notion. I believe the novel makes a sound argument for that one case only. It is a grand failure in the broad picture. I don’t know if experts will ever get a handle on why some people are remorselessly violent, although I realize there is a possibility that the genes that prompt such behavior may be isolated in the future. Until then, we all face the same chilling odds of an encounter with evil, like the poor soul whose car was hijacked by the fiend who had murdered a policeman only a while before. It’s best not to think about it, but hard when headlines push the horror directly into the face.
Looks like we're in for a big soak. The floating book shop may be on the shelf at least three days. Maybe if we all put our minds together we can will Sandy into a right turn out to sea.
My thanks to Jack of Chase bank, who purchased
Joker One, Donovan Campbell's account of his platoon's combat experiences in Iraq; and to the young employee of Dunkin Donuts, who used her tip money to a buy Janet Evanovich's
Sizzling Sixteen.
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