Last week I wanted to write about the most famous crimes to happen on Independence Day weekend, like I did with Easter not too long ago, but when I did the research, I couldn't go through with it. Unlike Easter, where the crimes varied, the Fourth of July is a brutal and bloody holiday, and rounding up shooting after shooting didn't feel like a good way to spend my time.
This week, nothing really feels like a good way to spend my time. I've defended crime fiction (and will again) because I feel it serves a greater purpose than glorifying "bang, bang, money, drugs, knife wound" and that hasn't changed. I can't focus on the fiction side of things when the reality is so horrific.
I can't focus on the real crime happening around us because I'm speechless. My interest in true crime has never gone as far as being interested in police brutality that ends lives with children in the car. It's never included snipers on buildings firing into crowds. I don't find any of this entertaining and I am at a loss for even how to comment on it from the perspective of a citizen who feels raw, hurt, and afraid - and knows that there are people among us who feel those emotions ten times stronger because they identify with the people killed over the last few days.
I don't know what to say. I don't know if there is anything I can say.
1 comment:
Crime fiction, like Joel and Ethan Cohen's Fargo, like Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men does not need defending. It needs celebrating. It's kind of like saying Hamlet needs defending 'cause it is so violent and such awful things happen and everybody dies in the end. I can't explain it either.
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