If I Am Missing or Dead

This memoir tells of years of mental, physical, and sexual abuse endured by the author. An especially low point is the murder of her younger sister. The unrelenting abuse cannot help but cause the listener to wonder why neither of the siblings sought professional help, though, in the end, Latus does manage to leave her husband. Shelly Frasier reads in a monotone as befits the litany of woes. Her performance is natural and believable, but the depressing story itself may not be the best candidate for an audiobook as there are no lighter moments to relieve the sadness. S.S.R. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

Starred review from February 26, 2007
At age 37, Janine Latus's younger sister, Amy, was strangled to death by her live-in boyfriend, bundled in a plastic tarp and buried beside a remote country road. It was a wretched end to a too-short life, one frequently marked by disappointment, sadness and struggle. In the hands of a less gifted writer, Amy's story might stand only as an encomium or a cautionary tale: a glimpse into the life of one abused woman, representative of thousands like it. But Latus weaves a double strand. Part memoir, part biography, the book (which grew out of an article in O Magazine
) explores Latus's own relationships with abusive men—and her eventual emancipation from a marriage riven by emotional and physical violence. Latus has a spare, economical style, softened by an undercurrent of humor and marked by a total absence of self-pity. When on a ski vacation, a boyfriend brutally beats her, breaking several of her ribs and her nose—and then makes love to her, in a twisted form of penance—Latus doesn't wince in the retelling. She lets ambiguities and contradictions abide: she loved her husband, even as he humiliated and hurt her. Had things been slightly different, she seems to say, she—and not Amy—might have perished at the hands of her partner. Unforgettable, unsentimental and profoundly affecting, Latus's book resonates long after the final page is turned.