Irreparable Damage

Rating:
Summary: Page-turning tale - but unclear fiction/nonfiction boundary
Review: Irreparable Damage delivers as it promises a harrowing tale of a man being accused of sexual abuse, all stemming from some spontaneous photographs he innocently took of his precocious 6-year old daughter after her bath. The author does a fine job presenting the downward spiral in this poor man's life and he is painted quite sympathetically, where the reader cannot help but root strongly for justice on his behalf. My major complaint with this book is also what drew me to it - that it is "based on an actual case." It is billed as a novel and yet in the "author's note," he states that he took the liberty of changing names and locations and modifying some of the less important details of the story. As he says, "but it happened, it really did. As the old saying goes, you just can't make up stuff like this." The problem is that the story has such dramatic, Hollywood movie features in it, including a quite satisfying but implausible courtroom ending that one can't help but wonder what has been embellished to maximize its intensity. It doesn't help that the book jacket describes the crucial photograph-taking scene (with the daughter saying "Take this one") differently than actually occurs in the book. From the author's comments at the end of the last chapter, it is clear that this criminal defense attorney/author is strongly advocating for people's eyes to be opened about the potential for well-intentioned abuse when pursuing abuse, but his case would have been made that much stronger if he were able to present this book in a non-fiction format. As the author acknowledges at the end, he would love to "see something of mine climb off the printed page and onto the screen" and one can't help but wonder what dramatic flairs were added to enhance this possibility.