Book Review: After Etan
Shortly after I read and reviewed The Weight of Silence, a book about girls who have gone missing, the author of another book contacted me. After Etan by Lisa R. Cohen is not a fictional tale of a missing child. Instead, this is the true story of “The” missing child, the one who changed it all. How?
On May 25, 1979, six-year old Etan Patz walked to the bus stop. However, he never made it to school nor did he come home after school ended. The media-coverage that followed Etan’s disappearance changed how missing children cases were handled. In fact, May 25 is recognized as National Missing Children’s Day in Etan’s honor.
This book was hard for me to read in some ways. Who wants to think about their child going missing? Who wants to consider that something so awful can occur? That in a two block walk, your life can be turned upside down forever? This book, however, was well-written and sheds a lot of light on the processes that followed, both initially and over the years.
We all watch television shows like Law and Order. We watch everything unfold nicely in the span of 60-commercial-interrupted minutes. What we don’t see are stories that span decades. The hard-fought stories that certain individuals, from police to the media to the FBI, find themselves dedicated to; they can’t stop working for or fighting toward a resolution. This particular story, while not exactly the happiest read on the block, is somehow still uplifting. The final chapter, which shows how Etan’s parents endure National Missing Children’s Day all these years later is a glimpse at hope. And a life no parent ever wants to live.
Still, the uplifting part of the story can be summed up with this paragraph found in one of the last chapters.
In the years after Etan was lost to them, Stan had witnessed so much proof of the good in man. The accumulation of all those smaller acts of kidness over time had muted Stan and Julie’s enormous sense of loss, like the sweet strains of Mozart and J. S. Bach that obscured the ringing in Stan’s ears as he worked. He took his small comfort from finally knowing the fate of the child lost to them, always the cruelest part of this long story. But he took much greater comfort in what he had held on to. He thought of Lev Sviridov heading off to Oxford, and the labor-of-love library that had opened so many little minds, and the stories Julie would regale him with of “her kids.” Jose Ramos may have tested Stan’s faith in humanity, but he hadn’t destroyed it. The best and most obvious example was the woman sitting next to him.
As I’ve said before, there are certain things I can’t imagine. Losing a child in this manner is one of those horrors. This book has the potential to scare parents. I encourage parents who have, at the very least, a minor interest in the legal processes or true crime dramas to go ahead and grab this book. I don’t want to say that I enjoyed the story itself as the loss of any child is unimaginable. I did, however, enjoy Cohen’s fabulous writing. The years of research and writing are evident in her finely chosen words. She did a great job of “showing, not telling” which is hard to do with a story of this nature. It’s quite a task to take a subject like this one and make it an enjoyable read. Cohen did just that and she should be commended for a job well done.
After Etan
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[Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.]
Tags: After Etan, Lisa R. Cohen
