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Title: Twentynine Palms : A True Story of Murder, Marines, and the Mojave by Deanne Stillman ISBN: 0-380-79401-2 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 26 March, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.36 (45 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: An Honorable Memorial
Comment: I'm a former Marine who was once stationed at Twentynine Palms. I was not happy about being sent to the desert - I'm a city boy, born and raised. But now that I've read Deanne Stillman's incredible book, I have a new appreciation for the desert, which she describes as a living and breathing thing that is beautiful and haunting. I never knew much about the locals when I was there a few years ago, but now I would like to go back and get to know some of these amazing characters. Stillman describes their struggle against all odds with great respect and identification, yet she spares no unseemly detail of their hardscrabble lives. They have done what Marines are taught to do - "adapt and adjust." Some of them got killed along the way. Semper Fi, MIss Stillman. Thanks to your book, I will forever remember Mandi and Rosie, who died for their country, trying to help all the lonely boys in town.
Rating: 3
Summary: Good, but not Great
Comment: Although I don't live in Twentynine Palms, I do live in San Bernadino County and was a little amused by the statistics that Ms. Stillman cites about "us" because we aren't really like that. I am familiar with the desert and many of the desert towns and their histories, though, and I agree that they do have a sort of mystique that transcends the urban, the suburban, and the midwest.
Some of the reviews and reviewers here have taken offense to the way that their town is characterized and that's understandable. I realize that most people in 29 Palms can't possibly be that dysfunctional or problematic or the place wouldn't even run. However, I think that Ms. Stillman did a masterful job of portraying a certain portion of a desert town, a certain circle of people in a particular way that helps one be able to see them as real individuals with real problems that they have dragged through generations to end up in a place like 29 Palms and endure more uncertainty and more tragedy. And that, to me, is what makes the book worthwhile--it's intimacy.
I, like another reviewer, would have like to have heard more of what Ms Stillman has to say to substantiate her claim that the Marines have continued their "war on American" woman, but despite that flaw, this book is on my true crime classics shelf.
Rating: 3
Summary: A good read but not a good account
Comment: I first read this book out of interest in this particular murder case. In that aspect I found it disappointing. As I am personally acquainted with some of the investigators and one of the witnesses, I didn't find it to be completely accurate regarding the case; having known so many Marines and Gulf War veterans, I found it's characterizations to be sweeping generalizations; having lived in 29 Palms, I found it to be glarely inaccurate in its portrayal of the area and, yes, offensive.
However, in re-reading this just as a crime story, it makes for a good read. Like those movies you enjoy that are "based on" or "inspired by" a true story, it is much better if you don't really know the true story. Allowing then that this is a fictionalized account, it is well written and at times a real page-turner.
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Title: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd ISBN: 0142001740 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 28 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown ISBN: 0385504209 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 18 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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