This book was billed as a “father-daughter memoir,” and my daughter expressed interest in reading it. Thus, we decided to read it together. Multiple narrators give voice in this work, and authors are cycled in chapters between Cylin (the daughter) and John (the father).
This is no normal father-daughter relationship, however. The father John, a police officer in Massachusetts, was targeted in a shooting by a crime family. Over decades, he had his face surgically reconstructed after the bullet destroyed his jaw. His family lived under the constant fear of being further targeted. Obviously, this affected their family dynamics. This story seems ripe for a memoir.
Both my daughter and I enjoyed Cylin’s telling more than John’s telling. Cylin seems more focused on adjusting to life; John seems more purely angry at the perpetrators, an understandable reaction. John’s wife and two sons also had their lives upended, but Cylin seems to have the most perceptive insight.
I kept waiting for the metaphorical dam to break. I kept waiting for their lives to get back to “normal.” That seemed never to happen. These events changed their lives. They disappeared for a year, yes, but they also changed forever. The family did try to bring good from this horrific circumstance, and they deserve credit for that.
Although written in father-daughter pairings, this story is more about crime than it is about a parent-child relationship. The crime and its aftermath are profoundly interesting. It seems that each family member dealt with the crime in their own way. Eventually, they resumed with life. I’m not sure I’d say that it drew them closer together. The circumstance just made each of them more resilient as individuals. They each grew to have more inner strength. That’s the legacy of this horror, but in the “Where They Are Now” section, the family members seemed to have adapted to their future lives. Overall, it’s a great tragedy.
The Year We Disappeared: A True Crime Memoir
By Cylin Busby and John Busby
Copyright (c) 2018
Bloomsbury
ISBN13 9781599904542
Page Count: 329
Genre: Memoir
www.amazon.com