The Events of October

My impressions of The Events of October were highly impacted by my constant nausea while reading the book. I was, to say the least, very impacted by this story, and put the book down several times, especially at the parts focusing on the IM's and the murder scene. With that aside, I do have some critiques and questions about the book.

I was interested in the time line of this story, which is something that I'd hope to discuss with Gail this evening. At what point was it clear to her that an in-depth book was the appropriate medium for this story? Did she do primarily research or was the information presented something she had kept or had easy access to? I am curious about the process of this writing, and how transition from different styles of writing comes to a writer?

Secondly, the use of her own character was both positive and negative in my opinion. I perhaps expected her to be too much of the story, since we open with her experience, but this was incorrect. She doesn't weave herself back into the piece until much later, after describing in detail some of the relationships and stories of both Maggie and Neenef. I was confused by this slightly, perhaps I just had the wrong impression, but this threw me off, and almost made me question why she included the "I" character. I know I sort of asked this last week, but I'm still struggling (especially after reading many profiles, which seem to be split between using the "I" character and not) at how one makes this decision. Gail's explanation here would definitely be good insight, and I hope to bring that up tonight.

Overall, the reading experience was not a pleasant one due perhaps to my senstivity and this topic, but I did enjoy the structure, the leading through the experience, and am excited to talk about some of the complexities of both the event and the process of writing a story about it.