Deserving of a head shake and a sigh

books:


	• Such Good Boys: The True Story of a Mother, Two Sons and a Horrifying Murder Tina Dirmann St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2005 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 28 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Interesting but not outstanding

This book held my attention, mostly because is involves a mentally ill mother and the outcome of her illness. It does not delve deeply, though, into the mental illness issue or the investigation of her murder.

The double-standard is galling.

This book should make clear to anyone who reads it the hypocrisy and double standards with which our culture reacts to murder. If the genders were reversed, Jason could have been ten years older and would have been portrayed as rising against the shackles of patriarchal oppression. There would have been celebrities and artists and feminists turning the case into a cause celebre, as they did with Aileen Wuornos, who had far less reason to commit her depradations than these boys. I, too, think the punishment for Jason was appropriate, although the expectation that he could have been repentant is ridiculous. Most people -- male or female -- who are raised under such circumstances aren't. Jason was rightly held socially responsible for his actions, but the root cause of this ugly tragedy was mainly the monster "mother" who "raised" him.

Note, too, the eager willingness on the part of female readers to assume this "mother" was mentally ill. Apparently, there are those who believe that only men are capable of abuse, violation, and oppression through the force of their own will.

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Good read

I received my order within a couple of days, very fast shipping. The book itself was a great read. Would recommend this book to anyone.

Deserving of a head shake and a sigh

The two boys had every reason to do what they did, and if they had looked or acted remorseful during that time, it would have been to their benefit. But no, page 186 describes Jason telling another inmate that he killed his mother, grinning about it the entire time. What did he expect? That they wouldn't consider him a threat to society if he acted like that? Then there's the unfortunate fact that this young man was 18, and considered an adult, who could have gone out into the ring and taken the legal system on himself for custody of his brother.

I agree that this story is tragic for many reasons. First of all, because someone should have taken custody away from the mother, she was in no shape to be raising two teenage boys. Even their father sort of backed out after he left her and sort of saved himself. If anyone had made a case out of this, I doubt any judge would have left two boys with a mother who is obviously and unmistakably mentally ill.

The other reason this story is tragic is the fact that it ended with murder. The children's mother was very sick and someone should have tried to get her help, instead of treating her like she had full mental capacity and holding her responsible for her actions. She probably did not mean to hurt the boys the way she did, but she was terrified every day herself of millions of formulated threats and being stalked by "the henchmen of Duncan Sheik." She was scared, in some ways really a victim herself, and she needed to be in the care of a psychiatrist and on some kind of medication that might have aided her in living a normal life.

So while this book demonstrates a complete lack of regard from the entire world on the abusive situation the boys were forced to deal with for years, it also demonstrates a lack of regard and compassion regarding a woman who was seriously mentally ill, by no fault of her own, that no one bothered to aid or care about until it was too late.

I think Jason's punishment was apt. Matthew, however, really does deserve a second chance at life.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

AN ABUSIVE MOTHER
Raised in the suburb of Riverside, California, twenty-year-old college student Jason Bautista endured for years his emotionally disturbed mother?s verbal and psychological abuse. She even locked him out of the house, tied him up with electrical cord, and on one occasion, gave him a beating that sent him to the emergency room. His fifteen-year-old half brother Matthew Montejo also was a victim to Jane Bautista?s dark mood swings and erratic behavior, but for some reason, Jason received the brunt of the abuse?until he decided he?d had enough?

A SON?S REVENGE
On the night of January 14, 2003, Jason strangled his mother. To keep authorities from identifying her body, he chopped off her head and hands, an idea he claimed he got from watching an episode of the hit TV series ?The Sopranos.? Matthew would later testify in court that he sat in another room in the house with the TV volume turned up while Jason murdered their mother. He also testified that he drove around with Jason to find a place to dump Jane?s torso.

A CRIME THAT WOULD BOND TWO BROTHERS
The morning following the murder, Matthew went to school, and Jason returned to his classes at Cal State San Bernardino. When authorities zeroed in on them, Jason lied and said that Jane had run off with a boyfriend she?d met on the Internet. But when police confronted the boys with overwhelming evidence, Jason confessed all. Now the nightmare was only just beginning for him?

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