Rhinoceros Running

The author of this book, Stephen Hodel, was an LAPD homicide detective, and he makes his case here that it was his father who killed the Black Dahlia, as well as a large number of other women. So the book is a very compelling piece of policework, but also this horrific portrait of the worst kind of family dysfunction, as well as the systematic corruption that allowed the killer to remain free.

It is hard not to feel that misogyny guided some of these decisions. Societally, we seem to accept a certain level of violence against women as acceptable. Rape and sexual harassment continue unabated. The victim continues to bear the brunt of the blame. I ask myself, what would have been the response if men were being systematically murdered, their bodies unceremoniously dumped, abused, raped?  

The book is both terrifying–I can’t help but think that there are variations of this man out there today, right now–but also a strange comfort because it seems violence isn’t so random after all?

Truth be told, I’m not sure what I feel about this book. I think it’s true, which is the best thing a book can be, isn’t it? It’s unfathomable, isn’t it, to lose a spouse of 40 years, and not just a spouse, but a true partner . . . they spent so little time apart, she’s able to document the handful of days they weren’t together.

To add insult to injury, her daughter suffers multiple hospitalizations. The book doesn’t mention a lot of the daughter after she’s released from a therapeutic facility, and it wasn’t clear to me at the very end that the daughter was alright, so I did a google search. After the time period the book covers, their daughter again requires hospitalization and surgery, but she does not recover. Unbelievably, within a relatively short period of time (less than two years?), Joan Didion loses her husband and her daughter. Unfathomable.

http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/books/14633/