Sandra Burr

Facing the Wind Sandra Burr

Bob Rowe and his wife Mary worked hard to build their American dream. A suburban home, barbecues in the summer, and a fast track corporate job made their life look ideal to outsiders. Yet they faced one of the most difficult challenges for a couple: their son Christopher was born severely handicapped and disabled. As a family, they managed to navigate through the tough times by being hands-on parents. Their efforts were emboldened by a group of extraordinary women - all of whom also had disabled children - who acted as a support system for one another. Yet something slowly began to happen to Rowe . . . His deceased mother's voice started to reverberate in his head instructing him to murder his family; reality disintegrated and a new job was lost when it proved too overwhelming. Finally a short stay in a psychiatric hospital did nothing to quell his sudden volatility . . . In a horribly violent act, he killed his wife and children. Seen through the eyes and thoughts of Rowe's friends and second wife (whom he married on release from the psychiatric hospital where he spent just a few years for the murder of his family), Salamon braids the story of a man's roller coaster life (from ideal family man to murderer to someone struggling for redemption) with the touching and heroic tales of the mothers who were left looking on in shock at the tragedy no one ever could have anticipated.