Losing Matt Shepard

Rating:
Summary: Never Losing Him
Review: It seems both so long ago and so yesterday that a young gay man was ruthlessly tortured and killed on a lonely Wyoming road, torching a national controversy that became interwoven into our national quilt. In her book, "Losing Matt Shepard", Beth Loffreda successfully examines the threads of this event, its effect on Wyoming, Laramie, and the people closely involved.

Loffreda doesn't merely rehash the events, but extends and relates them in a matter of fact way that brings a deeper understanding to the entire horrific event. We see the event through many different groups eyes, through his friends, special groups, Laramie residents, Wyoming residents, national media, and even hate groups. It's through this multi-faceted examination that we are drawn deeper into this tragedy.

And then at this moment, Loffreda brilliantly takes us around the crime scenes with a sheriff so devoted to Matt and solving this crime, he becomes a true hero in this story. The placement of this section is criticial; just when we yearn for this information, she gives it to us, painting us a picture of the last hours Matt spent on this Wyoming plain, and his eventual death. It chilled me reading it, and moved me deeply. You want to run into the pages to save this poor soul who suffered because of who he was.

Read this book. Understand the consequences. Make sure nothing like this ever happens again.

Rating:
Summary: well-balanced discussion of a painful episode
Review: Remarkably balanced and fair discussion of the deep issues raised by Matt Shepherd's brutal murder. In exploring Matt's murder, the author explores the whole notion of intolerance and discrimination and reveals how complex and multilayered the issue of intolerance is. Ms.Loffreda also doesn't pull any punches in discussing the well-intentioned, but despairingly token, efforts launched by celebrities and the "in-groups" in response to Matt's death; such as the well-known 60's Folk music group that came to Wyoming to perform in Matt's memory...and left organizers a fat 42 thousand dollar "appearence fee"...also refreshing is Ms.Loffreda's questioning of the "assimiliationist" tendencies of some Rights organizations that pretend to speak for sexual minorities; as one interviewee at the University of Wyoming told her, "I don't want gay rights, I just want the same rights as my co-worker down the hall..." Most of all, Ms.Loffreda reminds her readers of the importance, and protection for, dissent in society. She tells us that tolerance for dissent is one of Matt's legacies to the rest of us...indeed so...

Rating:
Summary: Prissy, scolding tone
Review: The author lost Matthew Shepard; he doesn't appear in the book, and neither does his murder. He is a ghost. Which is a true shame. Most of the book is softly pitched post-modern pyrotechnics. Loffreda avoids the hard questions, and omits crucial information to understanding what happened that cold, cold night. Loffreda dodges the role religion played in Matt's murder. One of Matt's killers was an Eagle Scout and an elder in the Mormon church. Also Loffreda makes a great deal about the fact that the killers attacked two latinos after killing Matt, as if racism is tied to homophobia. We aren't told that the latinos were homophobic thugs themselves, out slashing tires and looking for trouble. This book isn't about Matthew or even his murder, but if you can get past the author's sideways approach to the subject of homophobia it is a worthwhile read.

Rating:
Summary: Author Missed Matthew Shepard
Review: The author lost Matthew Shepard; he doesn't appear in the book, and neither does his murder. He is a ghost. Which is a true shame. Most of the book is softly pitched post-modern pyrotechnics. Loffreda avoids the hard questions, and omits crucial information to understanding what happened that cold, cold night. Loffreda dodges the role religion played in Matt's murder. One of Matt's killers was an Eagle Scout and an elder in the Mormon church. Also Loffreda makes a great deal about the fact that the killers attacked two latinos after killing Matt, as if racism is tied to homophobia. We aren't told that the latinos were homophobic thugs themselves, out slashing tires and looking for trouble. This book isn't about Matthew or even his murder, but if you can get past the author's sideways approach to the subject of homophobia it is a worthwhile read.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent insight
Review: This book is great in that it was written by a Univeristy of Wyoming and LAramie resident who was there whan Matt was killed. Beth goes past the media's misconceptions of our small town and explines how everyone was affected and how the town was changed by one man. It's not a book to read to elarn about Matt and his struggles in rural Wyoming, but the aftermath of the murde rand how the country was focused on Laramie for the time.

Beth does a great job of explaining how, despite what the media said, the town did change afterwards and that Laramie is not a bunch of rednecks and hicks who were passive about the murder and trials one and two years later. While the media is not longer foused on Laramie, this bok is a legacy to our town and so that the world can remember Matt and how his life and tragic death affected not only our small town, but the entire country.

Rating:
Summary: Broadening our horizon
Review: This is certainly one of the best books that I've had the opportunity to read. It presents the subject matter in the context of a two fold manner: the personal impact of the death of Matthew Shepard, and that of activism. From the point of being gay, there are a myriad of emtoions, as attested to by the numerous interviews that Professor Loffreda conducted and to which she dedicates pages. From the point of understand human nature, she reviews the fears and concerns of numerous gay men and woman who only want the ability to love who they love without being encumbered. I was shocked by the vividness with which she related how Matthew Shepard was beaten and eventually died. I was struck by how anyone could do such a thing to another human being, and feel anything but revulsion for the commission of such an act. Perhaps one could be repelled by gay men and women, but to act thus denies any sense of human dignity. Professor Loffreda did an excellent job of trying to present both sides of such a human tragedy as the death of Matthew Shepard.....this is certainly an even tempered read. Please, look at this book in the objective tone that it was written. Professor Loffreda, congratulations--well written, and a testament to the struggle that gay men and women still endure!

Rating:
Summary: Reclaiming Laramie
Review: Those looking for a journalistic treatment of this subject, exposing sensational details and vivid personalities, will be disappointed in this book. It is an even-handed, somewhat reserved reflection on the events that swept the people of Laramie, Wyoming, into the national spotlight when Matt Shepard was murdered in October 1998. While there are several themes in the book, the chief one is the hysteria of the national media, which transformed the story of a young man's beating and death into a horrific hate crime, with all the over-simplification, instant analysis, and easy generalizations of highly competitive news organizations. Understanding the vast complexity of the social context that the murder emerged from and its meaning in terms of the people who make up the fabric of that community have been left for more thoughtful observers, writers and thinkers like the author, who can with greater knowledge, sensitivity, and analytical abilities address the central question, what REALLY happened?

Given the polarizing issue of sexual orientation, it's easy for readers to fault Loffreda for her refusal to reduce the subject to a black-and-white matter of homophobia. She makes an interesting argument about hate crimes, using Matt's murder as a way to show that the notion of a crime motivated purely by hate is an abstraction, and what really motivated this murder was a whole tapestry of motives having to do with social class, intent to rob, upbringing, a macho culture, and a depressed social and economic environment. If you boil it down to anything, what seems to be at the root of the crime is a simple wish to bully, intimidate, and victimize someone perceived as weaker. Where is the hate and where is the bias in all this, she wonders. It's there, yes, but so is much else that can't be addressed by labeling it as a bias crime.

Much of the book is also an attempt to represent the distinctive "lifestyle" of gay men and women living in a rural, thinly populated state, where being "out" is not an option, and there is a generally held belief that homosexuality does not exist there. Involved as she is with the gay community in Laramie, the author is familiar with many gay men and women who appear in the pages of her book, each expressing varying responses to the murder of one of their own. What's instructive is that "gay community" is a misnomer here, where there essentially is none. There is little organization and few resources to make a difference either socially or politically. Instead, national organizations and their celebrity representatives swoop in to capitalize on Matt's murder in the interest of their own agendas, both pro- and anti-gay. Matt gets "lost" in many ways, and this is only one of them.

Loffreda does not set out to win back Matt Shepard, but she does a lot to recover Laramie itself. She reclaims a town in its own terms, not those of the media. While she struggles with residents' resistance to change and the inappropriateness of their responses (emphasizing emotion rather than action), she acknowledges a wide-spread decency, a feeling of remorse, and a genuine wish to overcome complacency. For the gay men and women of Laramie, not a lot changes. There is still fear and anger, to go along with invisibility. But there is also love of this place on the wind-swept prairie, and a belief that for all its drawbacks, this is home.

I recommend this book for its attempt to undo the damage done by the occupying army of the national media. In that respect, it makes an interesting companion to the film "Bowling for Columbine."