Gone Boy: A Walkabout : A Father's Search for the Truth in His Son's Murder

Rating:
Summary: A journey into the heart of a parent
Review: A moving account of how a father tries to come to terms with the random shooting death of his son. What we learn is that while the journey is probably necessary, there are really no terms to be found. No answers that will make dad say "wow, now I understand."

But that does not mean the journey should not be under taken. His acount of handeling the weapon that killed his son is as powerful a passage as there can be.

The book starts slower than it reads later in the text.

Rating:
Summary: alright alright
Review: although the book was fairly well written i am a bit angered by the way gibson puts down the college. the college is very much still aware of the shooting and i don't appreciate being asked if i "go to that school where people get shot."

Rating:
Summary: Courage
Review: Any good parents worst NIGHTMARE, the early loss of a child. Gregory Gibson has the courage to take a hard, well written, look a himself and our society. If you have the courage it takes to do some honest thinking, READ THIS BOOK!

Rating:
Summary: We are all the authors of this story.
Review: As a father and social worker for thirty years, I have always been profoundly disturbed by the lack of understanding and avoidance of human aggression among those individuals and institutions, who typically confront it. While we point to laws, intellectually search, ad nauseum, for all the cultural, institutional and early childhood causes for tragedies, such as this one, we forget to appreciate that despite all our affluence, we have constructed a social order, not only unable to resolve the commonest forms of family and social conflict, but we are devoid of any rights of passage that might aid our youth in developing a true understanding of social consequences and responsibility. As the author and others in the book point out, why a simple phone call to 911 did not occur, is incredulous! This is a great book and agonizing story! You won't want to put it down. In fact, if you are a parent, you'll simply want to scream or cry!

Rating:
Summary: Chthonic Depths and the Light of Hope
Review: As a personal journey--a man's search for answers about his son's murder--Gone Boy is superb. By avoiding the contemporary tendency to see experience through the lens of predictable, knowable, "normal" and generic psychological stages of grief, Gone Boy evades a trap which waylays many attempts to describe grief and healing. With a piercing honesty, Gregory Gibson does not avoid a few long, hard, deep looks into the darker--chthonic, say--side of his nature--and all our natures: the violence within. And so as the darkness of the experience is transformed into a kind of on-going enlightenment, the hard won hope rings true. Gregor, and in fact his whole family, never allow the darkness to get them. As the story of one event's expanding concentric circles, Gone Boy is also superb. In clear, vivid, often luminous prose, Gregor relates his experience of looking the vast, unknowable complexities--webs of interrelations-- surrounding his son's death straight in the eye. The complexities he examines most often arrive in the form of the actual people--the murderer's parents; the man who sold the murder weapon; a security guard wounded during the shooter's rampage; psychiatrists who interviewed the murderer; officials at the college at which the murder ocurred etc.--most intimately involved. Gregor does not treat these people as necessary but secondary players, stepping stones to his own self-analysis, but instead allows us to look into their eyes too, to see the pain, denial, struggles, and insights which each carries through a world irrevocably changed by the events which link them all.

Rating:
Summary: Chthonic Depths and the Light of Hope
Review: As a personal journey--a man's search for answers about his son's murder--Gone Boy is superb. By avoiding the contemporary tendency to see experience through the lens of predictable, knowable, "normal" and generic psychological stages of grief, Gone Boy evades a trap which waylays many attempts to describe grief and healing. With a piercing honesty, Gregory Gibson does not avoid a few long, hard, deep looks into the darker--chthonic, say--side of his nature--and all our natures: the violence within. And so as the darkness of the experience is transformed into a kind of on-going enlightenment, the hard won hope rings true. Gregor, and in fact his whole family, never allow the darkness to get them. As the story of one event's expanding concentric circles, Gone Boy is also superb. In clear, vivid, often luminous prose, Gregor relates his experience of looking the vast, unknowable complexities--webs of interrelations-- surrounding his son's death straight in the eye. The complexities he examines most often arrive in the form of the actual people--the murderer's parents; the man who sold the murder weapon; a security guard wounded during the shooter's rampage; psychiatrists who interviewed the murderer; officials at the college at which the murder ocurred etc.--most intimately involved. Gregor does not treat these people as necessary but secondary players, stepping stones to his own self-analysis, but instead allows us to look into their eyes too, to see the pain, denial, struggles, and insights which each carries through a world irrevocably changed by the events which link them all.

Rating:
Summary: a look at ourselves
Review: As a survivor of the horrific event which killed Gibson's son, reading this book was a deeply personal and moving experience. Gibson's forthright and painstaking relation of his journey from rage to a form of peace became my own journey as well. I hope that others who have had their lives shattered by violence will also find meaning and healing in this book's pages. Whether the reader has experienced violence or not, I believe that Gibson's honest look at the dark and light side of humanity is refreshing and deeply revealing.

Rating:
Summary: brave & eloquent
Review: For such a disturbing and sad subject, you are unable to take a break or put it down. It remains facinating and never falls into a "sob story". It is rational but allows you to feel every emotion along with the author. This book is a triumph!

Rating:
Summary: brave & eloquent
Review: For such a disturbing and sad subject, you are unable to take a break or put it down. It remains facinating and never falls into a "sob story". It is rational but allows you to feel every emotion along with the author. This book is a triumph!

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and complex, . . .
Review: Gibson writes poignantly about how he processes the death of his son. The book (thankfully) doesn't purport to offer answers. It does raise questions. About random violence, about life's over-arching plan and our place in it. On the whole, although Gibson unquestionably describes his own emotions, including anger, I found the book itself remarkably un-preachy and un-angry. I attended Simon's Rock, but many years before these tragic events, and the book should certainly transcend any particular readership. It's about a safe place. Any place, whether it's a town, or a school, or a secure place inside of you that you never imagine will be shaken. It's about what happens when without reason or warning you discover that the place is not inviolable. A timely and thought-provoking read.