I don’t know when it started exactly, but at some point I became fascinated with those true crime stories on shows like “48 Hours Mystery” and “20/20.” I, however, don’t really enjoy reading true crime books or mysteries although you could argue that a lot of sci-fi falls into mystery or heck anything really if there is something to solve.
When the mystery is fiction I tend not to enjoy them because I tend to guess who the killer is pretty early on so unless it is a really well-written story I find myself asking: what’s the point? So, why do I tend to like the shows about real crimes, and disappeared people?
Not sure. Maybe it is because it makes you think about humanity in general. I’m always amazed when people say: I know her, she wouldn’t do that. But, do we ever really know anyone 100%? People, of course, (or most people) want to hide those darkest parts of themselves.
I recently read Lois Duncan’s non-fiction book Who Killed My Daughter? via e-book. I knew Lois Duncan was a Young Adult writer, and I found myself curious to know how she’d deal with talking about her own daughter’s murder. I think I actually picked the book up first because I was confusing Lois Duncan with Lois Lowery whom I read a lot when I was younger. It is a sad, but interesting read about the lengths a family goes to to try and solve a crime; And, about how to heal.
I don’t know what I would do if I was in a similar situation, and wondering what happened to a loved one who was killed. But, books like that, and documentaries do make me wonder about what I would be like in different scenarios – if my life had been different. I watched the really sad movie Winter’s Bone a while back, and while I realize that I was probably fairly poor as a child with a bit of a dysfunctional family, my life could not even compare to how spare and challenging the childhood must have been for the main character in that movie. Good movie, but very bleak.
I also watched a documentary called My Perestroika recently which isn’t about a true crime, but deals with different adults who grew up during the cold war. Do you ever wonder what you’d have been like if you had grown up under communism? When Hitler was in power? During the civil war?
Speaking of Hitler. Another devastating movie to watch is The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. I had not read the book, but found myself watching this slow paced movie. I couldn’t turn away. I wondered, and I’m working on a poem thinking about this as well, what would I have done if I had been in Germany during WWII? We all want to think we would be the hero, that we would have saved our fellow Germans despite religion, but what if you didn’t . ..
Ok, sorry this is kind of a bleak post, but just me thinking a bit lately. Perhaps some of the sad watching or thinking also surrounds knowing my step-mother has more saddness to deal with. Her mother had been in Hospice care for a while, and she passed away on Sunday. So much for one family to bear. Thinking of her and others who have lost loved ones recently.
Hang in there. Be good to one another.
Yes, yes, and YES! We are twins. We have a DVD player that has speed control for those slow movies LOL but I find myself intrigued with human nature…makes for great prose
When I become kind of obsessed like this with new ideas, like exploring human nature, I’ll go back to some of my pending work and think – ugh – why was I writing about flirting on the phone. How juvenile
I found poetry from when I was 15, and only one was worthy to repeat, Corn Bread and Beans, all the other stuff was boys boys BOYS! So I know what you mean. I am amazed at how you can pick a topic and write. I am trying to do this.
Laughing at you and Val, but I can’t stand seeing things happen to children, even in old British crime/detective stories, which most don’t go there. There is something about Miss Marple that bugs me…smug old biddy LOL at least that is what they say in the shows!
Smug old biddy
She needs to be in a poem as well! It isn’t easy to sit down and make yourself write on a specific topic, but I think that was one good habit I picked up during my MFA time.
Ya know my teenage poems were less about boys and more about WOE IS ME
I am also obsessed with true crime shows. Of course it’s because I’m also obsessed with human nature. It amazes me what lengths people will go to for so little, and what desperation does to a person. The only one’s I’m having more and more trouble watching are the ones involving children. Probably because I’m seeing my own less and less. More to worry about in this absolutely insane upside down world. Sometimes I wonder why I watch so many of these true life shows ( I find crime fiction much harder to read as well) because I am an extremely empathic person and some of those stories rip my heart out and leave me totally wrecked. Maybe I need to feel the emotion I don’t feel in my everyday life, maybe I need an outlet, I don’t know.
I think we need a psychologist to stop by and explain this to us! When I used to have dish I found it extra fascinating to watch a story when each of the different networks covered it on their news magazines to see what they focused on.
Yes! I kind of paid attention to that too. I just think it’s so interesting what people choose to focus on and what they choose to ignore. Both personally and depending on the image/slant the news magazine wants to portray.
That’s why I think studying non-fiction writing can be so interesting. When we choose to write about ourselves or others what parts of the narrative do we decide to tell? How do we draw our “character.”
Thinking of you and your step mom and family too, Jessie. This is a lot to handle.
I could get sucked into those stories too . ..but don’t get to watch them. Maybe a blessing?
I did just read The Hiding Place, and as you think about what would you / we do if there during WWII , I’m remembering the author saying as they were marched through a town, that the children would look at them, but the adults could not . .always looked down and away.
Hope you are feeling better! Thanks for always getting us together, to think and write!
The poem I was revising was just thinking about the Holocaust in particular and how people look away. I know I’ve seen a man verbally abusing his wife in a restaurant and I didn’t say anything. It is hard to decide at what level do you say something. Where is the line between privacy, and protection? Hard questions. Guess my mind is just in that place right now! Maybe I need to go watch some cartoons to free up some happier space